The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has managed to get a narrow win in the 2024 LS’ Elections. The exit polls also failed to expect the BJP’s downfall leading to a market crash to a 4-year low.
The election results were a shocker for the BJP witnessing the loss of Key candidates to the opposition. The Key candidates included Smriti Irani, Maneka Gandhi, etc.
BJP’s Key Candidates:
Smriti Irani (Amethi)
BJP’s Lok Sabha Candidate from Amethi, Smriti Irani is a star campaigner who was expected to win from the seat. She won this seat in the last Lok Sabha Elections and spent a lot of time on the ground campaigning. She worked for the development of the area and recently also bought a house signalling her connection with the constituency.
According to Election Commission data, while Congress candidate, Kishori Lal Sharma got 5,39,228 votes, Irani managed to get 3,72,032 votes. She managed to win this seat in 2019 with a margin of 55,120 votes.
In a message on X, Smriti Irani said, “To those who stood by me through loss and victory, I am forever grateful. To those celebrating today, congratulations.”
Such is life… A decade of my life going from one village to another, building lives, nurturing hope & aspirations, working on infrastructure ― roads, naali, khadanja, bypass, medical college and more.
To those who stood by me through loss and victory, I am forever grateful. To…
— Smriti Z Irani (Modi Ka Parivar) (@smritiirani) June 4, 2024
Maneka Gandhi (Sultanpur)
Maneka Gandhi, who won from Sultanpur in 2019 on a BJP ticket, lost the elections with a margin of 43,174 votes. She lost the votes against Rambhual Nishad, a member of the Samajwadi Party, who got 4.44 lakh votes. She won this seat in 2014 which was earlier held by Feroze Varun Gandhi, another BJP member.
Nishad got 43 percent votes while Maneka Gandhi got 38.8 percent votes. The third-placed Udayraj Verma of the BSP secured 1,63,025 votes.
Annamalai K (Coimbatore)
BJP’s Tamil Nadu President Annamalai K was announced as the candidate for Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore seat in the LS’ elections. He fought against Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)’s Ganapathy Rajkumar P and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)’s Singai G Ramachangran.
The Coimbatore seat was won by Ganapathy Rajkumar P (DMK) with a margin of 1.9 lakh votes. Annamalai was in second place earning 4.5 lakh votes in total.
Annamalai stated his support for the people’s verdict and congratulated those elected as new MP from Coimbatore. He said, “For the development of Coimbatore Constituency, I promise that I will continue to redouble my efforts for the development of the people of Coimbatore, along with giving full support to all the welfare schemes undertaken by him.”
Madhavi Latha (Hyderabad)
Madhavi Latha for the first time became a BJP candidate. She contested from the Hyderabad seat against All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM)’s Asaduddin Owaisi. She got 3.2 lakh votes while Owaisi got 6.6 lakh votes, losing by a margin of 3.3 lakh votes.
Asaduddin’s margin share in 2014 was 20.95 percent increasing to 32.14 percent in 2019. In the 2024 elections, his vote share was 61.3 percent in total while Madhavi got 30 percent votes. This increased from 58.9 percent of the total vote share.
Madhavi has been criticising the AIMIM party for running a goon party and claimed that they were using the police to track her down. She also exposed the ‘smart city’ bluff by talking about the underdeveloped areas and bad infrastructure. She was also in the news when she was checking the IDs of women with burkha because she claimed that police refused to check their identities.
Navneet Ravi Rana (Amravati)
Initially, she led the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections as a Nationalist Congress Party candidate from Amravati. However, she failed to make it to the list of members of parliament.
Navneet Ravi Rana won from Amravati in 2019 with a margin of 36,951 seats. She contested as an independent candidate but later joined the BJP on March 28, 2024. She is a sitting MP and was fighting against Congress candidate, Balwant Baswant Wankhade.
She lost against Wankhade with a margin of 19,731 votes, thus getting 5 lakh votes against Wankhade’s 5.2 lakh votes. She earned 43.2 percent votes while Wankhade got 44.8 percent votes.
