LS Polls: Campaigning for first phase ends; 8 Union Ministers, 2 former CMs, one ex-governor in fray

In the first phase itself, the Nagpur seat of Maharashtra is also to be voted. Union Road and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari is all set to score a hat-trick of victories from Nagpur seat. In 2014, he defeated seven-time MP Vilas Muttemwar by a margin of 2.84 lakh votes. In 2019, he retained the seat by defeating the incumbent Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole by 2.16 lakh votes.

Union Minister Kiren Rijiju is contesting from Arunachal West seat. Rijinu, 52, has represented the constituency three times since 2004. Rijiju's main rival is Nabam Tuki, former chief minister and current president of Arunachal Pradesh Congress.

Union Ports, Shipping and Waterways Minister Sarbanand Sonowal is expected to return to the Lok Sabha from Assam's Dibrugarh. Sonowal has been fielded from Dibrugarh by cutting the ticket of Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Rameshwar Teli. He is currently a Rajya Sabha member.

A three-cornered election battle is going on in Muzaffarnagar where Union Minister Sanjeev Balian is pitted against Samajwadi Party's Harindra Malik and BSP candidate Dara Singh Prajapati. Jitendra Singh, a two-time MP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet ally, is attempting a hat-trick in Udhampur.

The Nilgiri Lok Sabha constituency in Tamil Nadu is witnessing a tight contest between incumbent DMK MP and former Telecom Minister A Raja and BJP's Union Minister of State for Fisheries KL Murugan. This will be the first time that Murugan, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh, is contesting from here.

Sivaganga MP Karti Chidambaram is once again in the fray from the seat where his father P Chidambaram has won seven times against BJP's T Devanathan Yadav and AIADMK's Xavier Das. Tamil Nadu BJP President K. Annamalai is contesting from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, where he is pitted against DMK leader Ganapathy P Rajkumar and AIADMK's Singai Ramachandran.

Tamilisai Sundararajan, who recently resigned as Governor of Telangana and Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry and returned to active politics, is contesting from the Chennai South Lok Sabha seat. Sundararajan, daughter of veteran Congress leader Kumari Anantha, contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections against DMK's Kanimozhi, but lost by a huge margin in Thoothukudi. This time Kanimozhi is contesting again from this seat. In this seat, NDA's ally Tamil Manila Congress (Moopnar) has fielded SDR Vijayaselan and AIADMK has fielded R Sivasamy Velumani.

Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath's son Nakul Nath is contesting re-election from Chhindwara. Kamal Nath has won from this seat nine times since 1980. In the 2019 elections, the BJP won 28 out of 29 seats in the state, but missed out on a victory in Chhindwara, where Nakul defeated the BJP candidate by 37,536 votes, handing the only seat in the state to the Congress.

Out of Tripura's two Lok Sabha seats, West Tripura, which will go to polls in the first phase on April 19, will witness a high-voltage battle between former chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb and state Congress president Ashish Kumar Saha.

Gaurav Gogoi, deputy leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha and son of former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who has won the Lok Sabha elections twice since 2014 from Assam's Kaliabor constituency, owns the neighbourhood.