Nine Union ministers including Kiren Rijiju and Nitin Gadkari are up for the ultimate battle as the first phase of voting for the 18th Lok Sabha is set to begin on Friday. Apart from the union ministers, two former chief ministers and one ex-governor are also set to test their electoral fate in the first phase of the voting.
Nitin Gadkari: The Union Road and Transport Minister is seeking a hat-trick win from the high-profile Nagpur Lok Sabha seat which houses the RSS headquarters. Gadkari clinched the seat in 2014 by defeating seven-time MP Vilas Muttemwar by a margin of 2.84 lakh votes and maintained his lead on the seat on 2019 as well by defeating present Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole with a vote margin of 2.16 lakh. This time Gadkari will be in a direct contest with Congress candidate Vikas Thakre.
Kiren Rijiju: Union Minister of Earth Sciences and Food Processing Industries, Rijiju has entered the poll fray from the Arunachal West seat which he has represented thrice since 2004 in the Lower House of Parliament. For this year's poll, the contest on the Arunachal West constituency will be between Rijiju and former chief minister and present president of Arunachal Pradesh Congress Nabam Tuki.
Sarbanada Sonowal: The Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, and a Rajya Sabha member is seeking a return to Lok Sabha from Assam's Dibrugarh seat. Sonowal got a ticket from Dibrugarh after the Bharatiya Janata Party cancelled the candidature of Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Rameswar Teli.
Sanjeev Baliyan: BJP's candidate from Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha seat, with intricate caste dynamics, Union Minister Sanjiv Baliyan will be in a competition against Samajwadi Party's Harindra Malik and Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Dara Singh Prajapati.
Jitendra Singh: The two-time MP from Jammu and Kashmir's Udhampur is seeking a third term from this seat.
Bhupendra Yadav: The Rajya Sabha MP and a minister in the Modi cabinet is up for grabs against sitting Congress MLA Lalit Yadav, who belongs to Matsya region of Alwar district in Rajasthan and enjoys the support of the Yadav community.
Arjun Ram Meghwal: BJP's candidate from Rajasthan's Bikaner seat, Meghwal is pitted against former Congress minister Govind Ram Meghwal.
Nisith Pramanik: The Union Minister of State, Ministry of Home Affairs has been pitted by the BJP against Trinamool Congress's Jagdish Chandra Baisunya from West Bengal's Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat.
Other Important Candidates In Fray
Former Telangana governor Lt Governor of Puducherry, Tamilisai Soundararajan, who returned to the BJP fold recently is contesting from Chennai South Lok Sabha constituency.
Nakul Nath, son of former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, is seeking a re-election from the Chhindwara seat.
The West Tripura seat is also set to witness a high-voltage clash between former chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb and state Congress president Ashish Kumar Saha.
Congress' deputy leader in Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi will test his fate from Jorhat after winning the Kaliabor constituency twice since 2014. The shift in Gogoi's elecotral battleground came after the delimitation exercise in his 2019 constituency, Kaliabor.