Union ministers in fray: Rajeev Chandrashekhar loses to Tharoor; Irani, Munda trailing

New Delhi, Jun 4 (PTI) BJP leaders Smriti Irani, Ajay Mishra Teni, Arjun Munda, and Kailash Chaudhary were among the Union ministers trailing their opponents as 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 1.62 lakh votes as of 5:45 pm.

In Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar lost to Shashi Tharoor of the Congress by over 16,077 votes.

Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav, contesting his first Lok Sabha elections, defeated his nearest rival Lalit Yadav of the Congress in Rajasthan's Alwar by 48,282 votes. Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur secured a fifth term from Himachal Pradesh's Hamirpur seat, defeating Congress' Satpal Raizada by 1,82,357 votes.

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

Union Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying L Murugan was trailing DMK's A Raja by a big margin of over 2.40 lakh votes 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.

Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare Kailash Choudhary was in third position in Rajasthan's Barmer, with a gap of 4.48 lakh votes from the leading candidate.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah gained an unassailable lead of 7.44 lakh votes over his nearest Congress rival Sonal Patel in the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat.

Union Defence Minister and senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh, seeking a third consecutive term from the prestigious Lucknow seat, took a comfortable lead of more than 62,000 votes over the Samajwadi Party's Ravidas Mehrotra.

Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari led by more than 1.27 lakh votes over his nearest rival, Congress' Vikas Thakare, in the Nagpur Lok Sabha constituency, while Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal appeared on course for an easy victory in Mumbai North with a confident lead of over 3.27 lakh votes.

Minister of Earth Sciences Kiren Rijiju led in the Arunachal West seat by over 96,000 votes over his nearest rival, Nabam Tuki of the Congress.

The lead margins of Union ministers Arjun Ram Meghwal (Bikaner) and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat (Jodhpur) were around 55,000 and 1.14 lakh votes, respectively.

Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya was ahead by an unassailable margin of over 3.8 lakh votes in Gujarat's Porbandar.

Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan was leading by over 1.15 lakh votes against Pranab Prakash Das of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha's Sambalpur, while Culture Minister and BJP President in Telangana G. Kishan Reddy led by around 50,000 votes against his nearest Congress rival Danam Nagender at 6 pm in the Secunderabad Lok Sabha constituency.

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 236 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 alliance, 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.