Lok Sabha elections 2024: The poll race heats up in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh

Security personnel speak with locals as they patrol in a village, ahead of the announcement of LS elections, in Murshidabad on Saturday. PIC/PTI

Rajasthan accounts for 25 seats in the Lok Sabha and in the past two elections they have been held by the B JP. The most watched seats in the state will be Jodhpur where both Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot have a stake in this constituency. The former has won Jodhpur twice, the last time after defeating Gehlot's son Vaibhav Gehlot by a margin of 2.74 lakh votes.

Gehlot's own assembly segment too falls within this parliamentary constituency. In Kota-Bundi the Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla has won the last two Lok Sabha elections from this constituency. In 2019, his winning margin was 2.79 lakh votes. The Jat-dominated Nagaur seat is set to witness a keen contest with the BJP fielding former Congress MP Jyoti Mirdha, the granddaughter of Congress stalwart Nathuram Mirdha, who represented the constituency six times. The Congress is said to be in touch with former BJP ally, Rashtriya Loktantrik Party leader and current MLA Hanuman Beniwal for an electoral understanding.

At the same time, the BJP has fielded Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya, who recently left the Congress. The Congress is likely to ally with the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) to counter the turncoat on this seat. With a lion's share of Lok Sabha seats, Uttar Pradesh sends 80 members to the House of the people, the highest among all states. The constituencies include PM Narendra Modi's Varanasi and Gandhi family's bastions - Amethi and Raebareli, which the Congress appears struggling to save.

The key constituencies remain to be Kannauj, where Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav is tipped to contest from due to its significant presence of OBC and Muslim voters. The constituency, once represented by Ram Manohar Lohia, is currently with the BJP. But was with the SP's Mulayam Singh Yadav in 1999, Akhilesh Yadav in 2000, 2004 and 2009, and his wife Dimple Yadav in 2012 and 2014.

An SP citadel, Mainpuri was once represented by Mulayam Singh Yadav, and currently by Dimple Yadav. BJP stalwart and Union minister S P Singh Baghel lost here by a big margin last time. In an apparent attempt to regain the SP supremacy, Shivpal Yadav has been named as the party candidate from Badaun. In the last general election, BJP leader Sanghmitra Maurya, daughter of Swami Prasad Maurya, won here.

2,100
No of observers deployed to ensure conduct of polls free of inducement or coercion

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