India News | Smriti Irani, Arjun Munda Among Union Ministers Trailing Their Opponents

New Delhi, Jun 4 (PTI) BJP leaders Smriti Irani, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Ajay Mishra Teni, and Arjun Munda were among the Union ministers trailing their opponents as the vote count trends on Tuesday threw up disappointing results for the BJP-led NDA in the Lok Sabha elections.

Irani, who had clinched the Amethi Lok Sabha seat after defeating Rahul Gandhi in 2019, was trailing Congress candidate Kishori Lal Sharma, a close aide of the Gandhi family, by over 1.39 lakh votes as of 4 pm.

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Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Ajay Mishra Teni, whose son was arrested in connection with the violence in Lakhimpur Kheri in October 2021, was trailing the Samajwadi Party's Utkarsh Sharma by over 33,000 votes at 4 pm.

The SP contested the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh in alliance with the Congress.

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In Jharkhand's Khunti Lok Sabha constituency, Union Tribal Affairs Minister and sitting MP Arjun Munda was trailing Congress candidate Kalicharan Munda by over 1.28 lakh votes, according to the Election Commission.

In Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar was trailing three-time MP Shashi Tharoor of the Congress by over 15,000 votes at 4 pm.

In fact, Chandrasekhar had been leading by over 24,000 votes during the initial hours of counting.

The BJP appears to be losing heavily in its strongholds of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan, although it is expected to form the government with about 290 seats.

On its own, the Bharatiya Janata Party appears to be falling below the majority mark, with leads in 242 seats despite significant gains in Odisha, Telangana, and Kerala, offering some solace to the party after unexpected losses in the Hindi belt.

Its rival, the INDIA bloc, forged by their common opposition to the BJP and its ideology, was leading in about 230 seats.

In the last elections, the BJP had 303 seats on its own, while the NDA had over 350.

The final numbers are also likely to fall far short of the "400-paar" predictions by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and "370-paar" for the BJP. The exit poll results, which had predicted a thumping majority for the NDA, were completely contradicted by the actual results.

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