Smriti Irani to Rajnath Singh: Modi ministers score big victories

Several union ministers gained from the Narendra Modi wave to win Lok Sabha elections on Thursday, leaving out Hardeep Puri and KJ Alphons.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi conceded defeat in Amethi, bowing to textiles minister Smriti Irani. The minister was leading by 55,686 votes against Gandhi till midnight. The official announcement of results on the seats was delayed as matching of electronic voting machine (EVM) counts with voter verifiable audit trail(VVPAT) slips continued till late night.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi retained Varanasi by defeating Samajwadi Party candidate Shalini Yadav by over 4,79,505 votes. He increased his victory margin as compared to 2014 by over one lakh votes.

Union minister Giriraj Singh defeated CPI candidate Kanhaiya Kumar, a former president of the JNU students union, by 4,22,217 votes in Begusarai constituency of Bihar.

Agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh was ahead of his rival Aakash Singh by a margin of nearly two lakh votes in Purvi Champaran. In Arrah, RK Singh defeated his nearest rival Raju Yadav of CPI(ML) by a margin of 14,7285 votes.

Ravi Shankar Prasad defeated Congress' Shatrughan Sinha in Patna Sahib seat by 28,4657 votes.

Union minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey, too, sailed through against RJD's Jagadanand Singh, winning the Buxar seat by 11,7609 votes.

Tourism minister KJ Alphons was defeated in Kerala. He trailed at the third place behind Congress' Hibi Eden and CPI(M) candidate P Rajeev on Ernakulam seat. Eden won by a margin of 169153 votes.

His colleague and Union Housing and Urban Affairs minister Hardeep Puri lost in Amritsar by a margin of over 9,9626 votes against Congress's Gurjeet Singh Aujala.

Another big loss of the BJP was Union minister of state for Railways Manoj Sinha who lost by 11,9392 votes against BSP's Afzal Ansari on Ghazipur seat. The big winners included Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari. Singh defeated Samajwadi Party candidate and Shatrughna Sinha's wife Poonam Sinha in Lucknow by 34,7302 votes.

Gadkari won from Nagpur by a margin of around 2.13 lakh votes. He was up against Congress's Nana Patole.

In the Chandrapur(Maharashtra) seat, Union minister of state for Home Affairs Hansraj Gangaram Ahir was trailing behind Congress's Balubhau by 44,691 votes.

In UP's Baghpat, Satyapal Singh was also engaged in a keen fight with RLD candidate Jayant Chaudhary. Singh was leading by 17,546 votes.

Sanjiv Balyan was also engaged in an intense contest in Muzaffarpur seat in UP. He was leading over his rival and RLD chief Ajit Singh by thin margin of 6,526 votes.

Maneka Gandhi, who switched to Sultanpur(UP) seat, defeated BSP's Chandra Bhadra Singh by a margin of over 14,000 votes. In West Begnal SS Ahluwalia won the Burdwan--Durgapur seat defeating TMC's Mamtaz Sanghamita by 2,439 votes.

BJP's biggest winners included VK Singh who defeated his rival from SP Suresh Bansal by a margin of 50,1500 votes in Ghaziabad constituency.

Rajyavardhan Rathor defeated Olympian Krishna Poonia of Congress by 3,93,171 votes on Jaipur(Rural) seat. Arjun Ram Meghwal won in Bikaner seat by 2.5 lakh votes. Anant Kumar Hegde (Uttara Kannada) defeated JD(S) candidate Anand Asnotikar by 4,79,649 votes.

Union minister Mahesh Sharma won in Gautam Buddh Nagar (Noida) seat by 3.3 lakh votes, against BSP's Satyapal. In Bareilly, Santosh Gangwar sailed through.

Other ministers of Modi government including Jual Oram(Sundargarh), Sadanand Gowda(North Bengaluru), Shripad Yesso Naik(North Goa) Ram Kripal Yadav, Jitendra Singh(Udhampur), Rao Inderjeet Singh(Gurgaon), Narendra Singh Tomar(Morena), Babul Supriyo(Asansol), Ajay Tamta(Almora) among others, were on the victory march.