Lok Sabha Elections Results: After Prime Minister Narendra Modi was seen trailing in the early trends as per the Election Commission, Congress General Secretary in-charge Communications, Jairam Ramesh took a swipe at the PM and said that according to these trends, present PM is going to be become former PM. Ramesh called it a moral and political defeat.
"These trends show that the present (PM) is going to become former. This is his moral and political defeat...It has never happened before that the Prime Minister trails from his own constituency. The trends in Varanasi are just the trailer," Ramesh said.
The Lok Sabha elections were held across the country in seven phases from April 19 to June 1. As per ABP News-CVoter exit polls, In Uttar Pradesh, the opposition I.N.D.I.A bloc was likely to win anywhere between 15 and 17 seats with a vote share of 36.9%, while the BJP-led NDA was predicted to win 62–66 seats with 44.1% of the votes in its favour.
Lok Sabha Election Results: Varanasi Lok Sabha Seat
The Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency constituency took a centre stage with domestic and global watch as PM Modi was contesting the polls for a third time for here.
Pitted against him was Ajay Rai from the Congress besides five other candidates including two Independents. Varanasi laid the path for Narendra Modi to enter Lok Sabha for the first time in 2014 which he retained in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections as well. For the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, a total of 41 candidates had filed their nomination from the Varanasi constituency including comedian Shyam Rangeela. However, only seven candidates got past through the scrutiny.
In 2014, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal suffered a big defeat at the hands of the Prime MInister from the Varanasi seat. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, PM Modi bagged the seat and secured a second term from the same seat and returned to power with a bigger mandate securing over 4.5 lakh votes or 63.6% of the vote share. This time, against him was Samajwadi Party's Shalini Yadav.