Contests That Startled India

Lok Sabha constituencies that sprung a surprise in the 2024 polls

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Girls with their faces and hands painted with words to encourage citizens to vote in Amritsar, April 14, 2024. Photograph: Raminder Pal Singh/ANI Photo

Khadoor Sahib

IMAGE: Amritpal Singh won the election from Punjab's Khadoor Sahib seat. Photograph: ANI Photo

In a multi-cornered contest, Khadoor Sahib's fifth candidate, Amritpal Singh, the head of Waris Punjab De, contested as an Independent while lodged in a jail in Assam.

The radical Sikh preacher is popular in the constituency for his campaign against drug menace and his supporters detest any comparisons with Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

Amritpal's win would make New Delhi sit up and take notice.

Chhindwara

IMAGE: Congress leader Nakul Nath at the Badi Mata temple to offer prayers after filing his nomination from the Chhindwara Lok Sabha constituency, March 26, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

The BJP won Chhindwara, a seat it has never won despite its increasing influence over the years in Madhya Pradesh.

Nakul Nath won the seat in 2019, the only one of the 29 that the BJP lost in the state, which his father, Kamal Nath, had first won in 1980 and represented it until 2014 barring a couple of occasions.

Hassan

IMAGE: Suspended Janata Dal-Secular MP Prajwal Revanna, who was arrested in the alleged obscene video case at Bengaluru airport after he landed from Germany, May 31, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

A Vokkaliga stronghold, Hassan has been with the Janata Dal-Secular for three decades, sending H D Deve Gowda to the Lok Sabha on five occasions since 1991 and his grandson Prajwal Revanna in 2019.

The Deve Gowda family's ancestral village is located in Holenarsipur in Hassan, an assembly seat the former PM won for the first time in 1962 and Prajwal's father, H D Revanna, has represented six times since 1994.

However, in 2024, with Prajwal facing charges of sexual harassment of women, the Deve Gowda family lost its hold on Hassan.

Bangalore (Rural)

IMAGE: Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar pays tribute to Rajiv Gandhi on his 33rd death anniversary in Bengaluru, May 21, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

A seat held by D K Suresh, the brother of D K Shivakumar, Karnataka's deputy chief minister since 2013, has now gone into the hands of the H D Deve Gowda family, which rivals Shivakumar for the Vokkaliga support.

The BJP, as part of its alliance with the Janata Dal-Secular, fielded Dr C N Manjunath, a surgeon and Deve Gowda's son-in-law, on the BJP ticket from Bangalore Rural.

The BJP has held sway on Bangalore's urban seats for three decades but struggled to win the Bangalore Rural seat until now.

Thrissur

IMAGE: Narendra D Modi in conversation with actor Suresh Gopi as Union Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan looks on, February 27, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

The BJP's first win in Kerala has come with actor-turned-politician Suresh Gopi winning the Thrissur seat.

However, the BJP couldn't secure the Thiruvananthapuram seat with Congress' Shashi Tharoor eking out a win.

Baharampur

IMAGE: Congress candidate Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury lost the Berhampore Lok Sabha seat, which Trinamool Congress candidate Yusuf Pathan won, June 04, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

The Congress' Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the party's leader in the outgoing Lok Sabha, and Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's bitter critic, lost to cricketer-turned-politician Yusuf Pathan by 85,022 votes in his Baharampur stronghold.

Banerjee had identified Chowdhury as the biggest hurdle in her potential seat adjustment with the Congress in Bengal.

Chowdhury is a five-term MP from Baharampur, winning successively since 1999.

Varanasi

IMAGE: UP Congress chief and the candidate from Varanasi seat Ajay Rai shows the victory sign after casting his vote in Varanasi, June 1, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

Narendra Modi defeated INDIA bloc candidate, the Congress' Ajay Rai, by 152,513 votes.

However, his margin of win has reduced substantially from the 479,505 that he secured in a three-cornered contest in 2019, and was symptomatic of the losses that the BJP and its allies suffered across the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh, especially the seats that polled in Phase 8, such as Robertsganj, Chandauli, Ghazipur, and others.

Nagina

IMAGE: Azad Samaj Party (Kashiram) chief Chandrashekhar Azad addresses supporters during the protest demanding a CBI probe into case of attempted murder on him at Jantar Mantar, in New Delhi, July 21, 2023. Photograph: Mohd Zakir/ANI Photo

Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram)'s Chandrashekhar Azad won the seat by over 150,000 votes.

At a time when the Bahujan Samaj Party is a fading force, and the Jatavas looking for a successor to former UP chief minister Mayawati, Chandrashekhar winning the seat could lead to a churn in Dalit politics in UP.

Amethi

IMAGE: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with the party's Amethi candidate Kishori Lal Sharma in Amethi, May 17, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra stationed herself in Amethi for 10 days to campaign for family loyalist and Congress worker Kishori Lal, who the Congress fielded against the BJP's Smriti Irani, a Union minister, who defeated Rahul Gandhi in 2019.

Lal defeated Irani by 167,196 votes.

Faizabad (Ayodhya)

IMAGE: Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav holds hands with SP candidate from the Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency, Awadhesh Prasad, during an election campaign rally in Ayodhya, May 15, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

The Samajwadi Party fielded Awadhesh Prasad, a Dalit, from a 'general' seat against the BJP's sitting Lok Sabha member Lallu Singh, to reach out to Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Castes of the area, which had become the centrepiece of the BJP's Hindutva push with the consecration of the idol at the Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22, 2024.

The BJP's defeat in Ayodhya marked the triumph of Mandal over Kamandal in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.