Smriti Irani to again take on Rahul Gandhi from Amethi
New Delhi, Mar 21: Several parliamentary constituencies are set to witness high-profile contest this election with the BJP announcing its first list of candidates and fielding Union minister Smriti Irani against Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Amethi.
Irani had lost to Gandhi in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls but was seen to have put up a spirited fight.
The Congress has earlier announced the candidature of Gandhi from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.
In 2014, Gandhi (4,08,651 votes) defeated Irani (3,00,748) by 1,07,903 votes.
Besides this, the BJP's first list also set the stage for a high-octane battle in several constituencies such as Mumbai North Central, where BJP's youth wing President Poonam Mahjan will again take on Congress's candidate Priya Dutt.
Mahajan, the daughter of late BJP leader Pramodh Mahajan had defeated Dutt, the daughter of former Union minister Sunil Dutt, in the 2014 general election.
A similar battle is expected in the Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh where the BJP has pitted former Union Minister Sanjeev Balyan against the SP-BSP-RLD alliance candidate Ajit Singh. Singh heads the RLD.
Both, Balyan, the sitting MP, and Singh are Jats, which is a dominant caste in the western UP constituency.
The BJP released its first list of the candidates for 184 Lok Sabha constituencies which includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi, party chief Amit Shah from Gandhinagar and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow.
The Lok Sabha elections 2019 will be conducted in seven phases starting from April 11 and will continue till May 19. The counting of votes will take place on May 23.
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Cong performed better in Kerala, anti-incumbency trends influenced WB, TN: CM Siddaramaiah
Bengaluru (PTI): Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday said the Congress had largely met or exceeded expectations in several States, even as results in some regions reflected shifting voter sentiments.
Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, he said the party accepted the mandate in Assam while performing better than anticipated in Kerala.
He also pointed to possible anti-incumbency trends influencing outcomes in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
“In Assam, we got the expected result, and we accept the people’s mandate. In Kerala, we have won more seats than expected. We anticipated around 76 to 80, but we have gone up to around 95,” Siddaramaiah said.
In West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, there may have been an anti-incumbency trend, and that could have influenced the results, he added.
Siddaramaiah also extended his congratulations to a new political entrant in Tamil Nadu, noting the emergence of a different electoral dynamic in the State.
“I congratulate the new entrant who has achieved success there,” he added.
Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar said electoral outcomes in some States had diverged from the party’s internal assessments, reflecting evolving voter expectations.
“We expected a certain trend, but the results have been different. Political reading was wrong in some places,” he said.
“People were looking for change in some States, and that has been reflected in the results,” Shivakumar, who is also the Congress Karnataka unit president, said.
Referring to Kerala, he said the Congress-led alliance had benefited from public sentiment.
“There was already an expectation based on local body elections, and people had shown confidence in us. That has translated into a strong result,” the Deputy Chief Minister said.
On Tamil Nadu, he acknowledged that the scale of political shift had come as a surprise.
“We expected to secure around 30 to 40 per cent of the vote share, but such a major shift was not anticipated. It shows that voter expectations were different,” he said.
Shivakumar added that electoral outcomes underscored the need for better political assessment in future.
“We have to understand these changes carefully. Political reading cannot go wrong like this,” he said.
