Second Phase of Lok Sabha Election 2024 | Key candidates for second phase of polling in 88 Seats for Lok Sabha Election 2024 dgtl

The second phase of the 18th Lok Sabha seven-phase voting is on Friday. 13 states and union territories of the country will vote in 88 constituencies. This list also includes Darjeeling, Raiganj and Balurghat in West Bengal.

Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Bira and a host of star candidates are in the fray in the by-polls. Several members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet will also be ‘tested’ in this round of voting.

Rahul is also contesting from his old seat, Kerala’s Waynar. His main fight there is against CPI candidate Annie Raja of Left Alliance LDF. She is the wife of CPI general secretary D Raja. BJP state president K Surendran is also there. Former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor (Thiruanantapuram) and AICC General Secretary (Organization) KC Venugopal (Alappuzha) are contesting the polls on a Congress ticket from Kerala. CPM’s notable candidates are two former ministers KK Sailaja and Thomas Isaac (Pathanamthitta).

CPM politburo member A Vijayaraghavan is also a candidate for Palakkad seat. Two Union ministers of the BJP are in the fray from Kerala — Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Thiruanantapuram) and V Muralidharan (Attingal). Modi cabinet member Gajendra Singh Shekhawat is again in the fray from his old constituency Jodhpur in Rajasthan. Outgoing Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is the BJP candidate from Kota in that state. On the other hand, former chief minister Ashok Gehlaut’s son Vaibhav (Jalore) and one-time West Bengal in-charge AICC general secretary CP Joshi are prominent Congress candidates in Maruraj.

Two former chief ministers, Karnataka’s HD Kumaraswamy (Mandya) and Chhattisgarh’s Bhupesh Baghel (Rajnandgaon) are in the fray for the second phase of polls. Kumaraswamy is the JDS and Bhupesh is the Congress candidate. Actors Hema Malini (Mathura) and Arun Govil (Meerut) are contesting on BJP tickets from Uttar Pradesh. Hema is a two-time MP from Mathura. Arun, who played the role of Ram in the 80s TV serial Ramayana, is in the fray for the first time this time.

In Karnataka, BJP youth leader Tejaswi Surya (Bengaluru South) and deputy chief minister and state Congress president DK Shivakumar’s brother Suresh will also test their fortunes on Friday. Actress Navneet Kaur Rana, who won Maharashtra’s Amravati constituency in 2019 with the support of the Congress-NCP alliance, is the BJP’s candidate for the constituency this time. Prakash Akola, grandson of BR Ambedkar and the leader of the deprived Bahujan Agharis, is contesting the polls alone in the center as the opposition alliance consisting of Congress-NCP (Sharad)-Shiv Sena (UBT) did not agree on seats.

Bihar RJD-Congress-Left ‘Mahagathbandhan’ uncontested former Bahubali MP Pappu Yadav is contesting in Purnia as an independent. This time, the BJP has formed an alliance with Tipra Matha, the party of Pradyot Kishore Devavarman, son of Tripura’s royal family. In the second phase, Pradyot’s sister Kirti Singh Debvarma has been a candidate for the East Tripura seat under the ‘Padma’ symbol.

All the 20 Lok Sabha constituencies in Kerala will go to polls in the second phase on Friday. Apart from this, Karnataka has 14 Lok Sabha constituencies, Rajasthan has 13, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra have eight each, Bihar and Assam have five Lok Sabha constituencies in this list. There is also one Lok Sabha seat each from the northeastern region of Tripura and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Election Commission has decided to divide Lok Sabha constituency Outer Manipur into two parts. On April 19, the first phase of polling was held in a part of that Lok Sabha constituency. The rest will be on Friday. Eight Lok Sabha constituencies in Madhya Pradesh are slated to go to polls in the second phase, but due to the death of the BSP candidate, polling in the Betul constituency there will be held in the third phase (May 7).

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP won 52 of these 88 Lok Sabha seats. Congress in only 18. Apart from this, JDU and Undivided Shiv Sena won four each, IUML two, BSP, CPM, RSP, Kerala Congress, JDS candidates won one center each. Incidentally, on April 19, the first phase of polling was held in 102 Lok Sabha constituencies of 21 states and union territories of the country.