Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha Elections: List of key candidates in Phase 1

UP Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Eight crucial constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, including Pilibhit and Rampur, will also elect their representatives.

Lok Sabha elections 2024 Phase 1: The Lok Sabha elections 2024 will begin on Friday, with 102 seats in 21 states and union territories going to polls. A whopping 16.63 crore people are eligible to vote in the first phase of the general elections.

Polling officials after collecting EVMs and other election material on the eve of the first phase of Lok Sabha elections.(ECI's X account)

Eight crucial constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, including Pilibhit and Rampur, will also elect their representatives to the Lok Sabha. In the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls, 35.67 lakh first-time voters will be eligible to exercise their fundamental right. 3.51 crore young voters in the age group of 20-29 years will also be eligible to vote.

Here are some the key facts on the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls:

1. Voting for all Lok Sabha seats will take place in 10 states and union territories. They are: Tamil Nadu (39), Uttarakhand (5), Arunachal Pradesh (2), Meghalaya (2), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (1), Mizoram (1), Nagaland (1), Puducherry (1), Sikkim (1) and Lakshadweep (1).
2. There will be voting in 12 seats in Rajasthan, eight in Uttar Pradesh, six in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Maharashtra, four in Bihar, three in West Bengal, two in Manipur, and one seat each in Tripura, Jammu and Kashmir and Chhattisgarh.
3. Voting for assembly elections in Arunachal Pradesh (60 seats) and Sikkim (32 seats) will also take place.
4. Union ministers Nitin Gadkari and Sarbananda Sonowal will be in the fray in the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls. Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi and DMK stalwart Kanimozhi will also try their luck at the hustings. Bhupendra Yadav, Kiren Rijiju, Sanjeev Baliyan, Jitendra Singh, Arjun Ram Meghwal, L Murugan and Nisith Pramanik are other leaders in the fray.
5. Out of the total eligible voters, 8.4 crore are men, 8.23 crore women and 11,371 from the third gender. 18 lakh polling personnel across 1.87 lakh polling stations will be deployed.
6. In the 2019 general elections, the Opposition's UPA bloc had won 45 out of these 102 seats. The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 41 seats.
7. All seats in Tamil Nadu will go to polls. In 2019, the BJP drew a blank in the state, with DMK winning 38 seats and bagging more than half of the total votes polled. Pulling off a stellar performance in Tamil Nadu and other southern states will be essential for the BJP's dream to win more than 370 seats. In 2019, the BJP won 303 seats.

Key candidates in Uttar Pradesh

In Uttar Pradesh, Saharanpur, Bijnor, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Nagina (reserved for Scheduled Castes), Moradabad, Rampur and Pilibhit will go to polls.

BJP candidate from Pilibhit, Jitin Prasada.

Pilibhit: Jitin Prasada, who quit the Congress and joined the BJP, will take on Samajwadi Party's Bhagwat Saran Gangwar and BSP's Anis Ahmed Khan. The seat is currently held by Varun Gandhi. The seat has been the bastion of Maneka Gandhi's family since 1996. Bhagwat Saran Gangwar is the Samajwadi Party's MLA from the Nawabganj constituency.

Kairana: In Kairana, BJP's Pradeep Chaudhary will take on Sripal Rana of BSP and Iqra Hasan of SP. Chaudhary is the sitting Member of Parliament from Kairana.

Union minister and BJP candidate from Muzaffarnagar Sanjeev Balyan (HT FIle Photo)

In Muzaffarnagar, BJP's stalwart Sanjeev Kumar Balyan will take on SP's Harendra Singh Malik and BSP's Dara Singh Prajapati. He has been representing the constituency in the Lok Sabha since 2014. He is a veterinarian by education. He has been a minister in the central government.

Rampur is a very crucial constituency for the BJP as it comes under the sphere of influence of jailed Samajwadi Party stalwart, Azam Khan. Azam Khan had won the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. However, in the 2022 bypolls following Khan's conviction in several cases, BJP's Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi emerged victorious. Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi will take on SP's Mohibullah Nadvi and BSP's Zeeshan Khan.

In Moradabad, BJP's Sarvesh Singh will take on BSP's Irfan Saifi and SP's Ruchi Veera. Sarvesh Kumar Singh had won the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 but lost in 2019 to Samajwadi Party's Anuj Agarwal. Ruchi Veera is an ex-MLA.