The highly-anticipated Lok Sabha elections will kick off on Friday, with 102 parliamentary seats across 21 states and Union territories to poll in the first phase. Madhya Pradesh, which has 29 parliamentary segments, will see polling on six seats, while voting for the remaining constituencies will be conducted on April 26, May 7, and May 13, the second, third and fourth rounds of the seven-phase general elections.
In the previous 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 28 seats in Madhya Pradesh; the only constituency which the saffron party lost was Chhindwara, the bastion of Congress veteran and then Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath, whose son, Nakul, was the winner.
Besides the aforementioned Chhindwara, these are Balaghat, Jabalpur, Mandla, Shahdol, and Sidhi. The prominent BJP candidates in fray in this first leg are Union minister Faggan Singh Kulaste, the Mandla MP; and Shahdol MP Himadri Singh.
From the Congress’s side, the major candidates whose fate will be decided on Friday, include Chhindwara MP Nakul Nath and Omkar Markam, general secretary of the grand old party’s state unit. The latter will contest from Mandla.
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