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PM Modi’s Varanasi among 13 LS seats going to polls in UP on June 1

Harshad Dewangan 31 May 2024

Thirteen Lok Sabha seats, including Prime Minister Narender Modi Ji s Varanasi, will go to polls in the last and seventh phase of the general elections on Saturday.

Polling in the state, which sends 80 members to the Lower House of Parliament, is being held in all seven phases of the election.

The bypoll for the Duddhi (ST) assembly constituency in Sonbhadra district will also be held on Saturday. Six candidates are contesting from the seat that fell vacant after MLA Ram Dular’s disqualification following his conviction in a rape case.

The parliamentary seats where polling will take place are Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, Bansgaon (SC), Ghosi, Salempur, Ballia, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Varanasi, Mirzapur and Robertsganj (SC), spread across 11 districts.

Uttar Pradesh is a seeing a direct contest between the BJP-led NDA and the coalition of INDIA bloc members Samajwadi Party and Congress.

Besides Prime Minister Modi, who is a seeking a third term from Varanasi, there are 143 candidates in the fray.

Among the prominent Lok Sabha seats are Varanasi, Gorakhpur, which has been represented by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath five times, Chandauli, Maharajganj and Mirzapur from where Union ministers Mahendra Nath Pandey, Pankaj Chaudhary and Anupriya Patel are contesting, respectively, Ghazipur from where the late Mukhtar Ansari’s brother Afzal Ansari is in the fray and Ballia from where former prime minister Chandrashekhar’s son Neeraj Shekhar is contesting.