Lok Sabha elections 2024 Phase 2: Rahul Gandhi, Shashi Tharoor in fray

Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Shashi Tharoor and actorturnedpolitician Arun Govil are among the key candidates in the fray for the second phase of the Lok Sabha polls with BJPs Hema Malini Om Birla and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat seeking a hattrick of wins from their respective constituencies reported news agency PTIStaggered over seven stages the first phase of the elections held last Friday for 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories saw a voter turnout of around 655 per centLok Sabha elections 2024 Phase 2 Rahul Gandhi seeking reelectionIn the second phase of Lok Sabha polls on Friday polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka 13 seats in Rajasthan eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh seven in Madhya Pradesh five each in Assam and Bihar three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal and one seat each in Manipur Tripura and Jammu and KashmirRahul Gandhi is the sitting MP from Wayanad in Kerala and is seeking reelection He is pitted against CPIs Annie Raja and BJPs K Surendran In the 2019 election Gandhi secured victory by a substantial margin of more than 7 lakh votes against his closest rival CPIs P P SuneerSenior Congress leader and former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor is hoping to retain the Thiruvananthapuram seat for the fourth time He is pitted against Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar from the BJP and CPIs Pannyan RaveendranMalini who has represented the Mathura constituency since 2014 is contesting against Congress Mukesh Dhangar while Om Birla a twotime MP from Kota is facing Prahlad Gunjal from the Congress partyLok Sabha elections 2024 Phase 2 Union minister Shekhawat eyeing a third winUnion minister Shekhawat is eyeing a third win from the Jodhpur seat while Congress candidate Karan Singh Uchiyarda would look to put a spanner in the works of the BJP candidateTejasvi Surya the sitting MP for Bangalore South and the national president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha BJYM will face Congress Sowmya ReddyFormer chief minister of Chhattisgarh and Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel is contesting from Rajnandgaon a stronghold of the BJP for over 30 yearsBaghel is pitted against BJPs Santosh Pandey who won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections succeeding Abhishek Singh the son of former Chief Minister Raman Singh also from the BJPReplacing threetime MP Rajendra Agarwal who has been holding the Meerut seat since 2004 Arun Govil famous for portraying Lord Rams character in Ramayan TV series is making his electoral debut against BSPs Devvrat Kumar Tyagi and SPs Sunita VermaLok Sabha elections 2024 Phase 2 BJP leader Virendra Kumar Khatik eyeing a fourth winIn Madhya Pradesh BJP leader Virendra Kumar Khatik is eyeing a fourth win from Tikamgarh The Congress has fielded a new face Pankaj Ahirwar from the constituency In 2019 Khatik defeated Congress Kiran Ahirwar by a margin of over 348 lakh votesThe contest for the Alappuzha seat in Kerala has turned into a prestige battle for the Congress with All India Congress Committee AICC general secretary K C Venugopals return to the Lok Sabha poll fray after 2014 as the party looks to wrest the only seat it lost to the CPIMled Left Democratic Front LDF in its landslide 191 victory in Kerala in the 2019 pollsVenugopal has not lost any major election in his career He won the Alappuzha Assembly seat thrice in a row in 1996 2001 and 2006 and was elected to the Lok Sabha from Alappuzha in 2009 and 2014In 2019 he did not contest after the party elevated him to the post of the AICC general secretaryLok Sabha elections 2024 Phase 2 Actorturnedpolitician Suresh Gopi in the frayActorturnedpolitician Suresh Gopi is also in the fray from Thrissur against K Muraleedharan of Congress and VS Sunil Kumar of CPIMSukanta Majumdar incumbent BJP MP from Balurghat in West Bengal is seeking reelection He is pitted against Biplab Mitra of the Trinamool Congress and Joydeb Siddhanta of the Revolutionary Socialist PartyWith inputs from PTI