Lok Sabha Elections Phase 7: Narendra Modi To Abhishek Banerjee — Key Candidates And Battles

More than a month after India began voting, 57 constituencies across seven states and a Union territory will go to the polls in the seventh and concluding phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Saturday.

Voting will take place in 13 seats in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight in Bihar, six in Odisha, three in Jharkhand and one in Chandigarh. All 13 seats in Punjab and four in Himachal Pradesh will go to the polls during the last phase.

As many as 904 candidates are in the fray in the last phase. Prominent candidates include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Abhishek Banerjee, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Misa Bharti, Kangana Ranaut, Ravi Kishan and Anurag Thakur. The votes for all the 543 Lok Sabha seats will be counted on June 4.

Here is a look at the heavyweights and key battles in this phase:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is aiming for a hat-trick of wins from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. Modi is pitted against Indian National Congress candidate Ajay Rai, who had also contested the seat in the previous two elections.

The Bahujan Samaj Party has fielded Syed Neyaj Ali as its candidate for the high-profile seat.

West Bengal's Basirhat seat, where one of the assembly constituencies is Sandeshkhali, is witnessing a high-stake contest.

The All India Trinamool Congress has fielded Haji Nurul Islam and dropped actor-turned-politician Nusrat Jahan amid heavy criticism over her performance as an MP. Islam is an MLA from Haroa, which falls under the parliamentary seat. He had previously served as the MP for Basirhat in 2009.

In a strategic move, the Bharatiya Janata Party has named Rekha Patra as its candidate, projecting her as the face of the Sandeshkhali protests, against the now suspended and arrested TMC strongman Shahjahan Sheikh and his associates.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist)'s candidate is Nirapada Sardar, a former legislator from Sandeshkhali, who was arrested for alleged involvement in violence during the protests.

Kolkata North is set for a major face-off between sitting TMC MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay and the BJP's Tapas Roy.

Modi had held a roadshow at a part of the constituency on Tuesday, following which West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee led a march on the same stretch the next day.

Roy, who was the TMC MLA from Baranagar, had joined the saffron party ahead of the election.

The Congress has fielded Pradip Bhattac­harya, who is contesting with support from the Left Front.

The Pataliputra constituency in Bihar is gearing up for a showdown as Misa Bharti, daughter of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, is pitted against sitting BJP MP Ram Kripal Yadav.

Bharti had previously faced defeat at the hands of Ram Kripal Yadav in both the 2014 and 2019 elections. In 2009, Lalu Prasad Yadav was defeated from the seat by Ranjan Yadav, a former aide who contested as a Janata Dal (United) candidate.

TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee is contesting from the party stronghold of Diamond Harbour.

Mamata Banerjee's nephew faces a three-way contest against CPI(M) candidate Pratikur Rahaman and Abhijit Das of the BJP, which announced its nominee for the seat after much delay.

During campaigning, the sitting TMC MP has repeatedly exuded confidence about winning Diamond Harbour by a margin of over 4 lakh votes.

Union Minister Anurag Thakur is aiming for his fourth term in Himachal Pradesh's Hamirpur. Thakur faces off against Congress candidate Satpal Singh Raizada.

The BJP leader first became an MP from Hamirpur in 2008 after his father’s resignation and has since secured victories in the 2009, 2014, and 2019 elections from the same seat.

Bollywood actor and BJP candidate Kangana Ranaut is making her poll debut from Himachal Pradesh's Mandi, a stronghold of the Congress.

The Queen actor, who hails from the mountain state, will face off against seasoned Congress MP Vikramaditya Singh.

Mandi is a bastion of the Singh family, with the seat currently held by Vikramaditya's mother, Pratibha Virbhadra Singh.

Chandigarh, which has been a swing seat for years, is set to witness a high-stake battle between the BJP's Sanjay Tandon and Congress candidate Manish Tewari.

Tandon, a municipal councillor in Punjab for 14 years, replaced actor-turned-politician Kirron Kher for the seat.

Tewari, a sitting MP from Punjab's Anandapur Sahib, is vying for a prestigious victory.

Two actors-turned-politicians are set to fight it out in Gorakhpur, a BJP stronghold and bastion of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

The BJP's Ravi Kishan and the Samajwadi Party's Kajal Nishad, both stars of the Bhojpuri film industry, are contesting against each other.

In 2019, Kishan defeated SP candidate Rambhual Nishad, with over 60% of the vote share.

Patiala is set for an interesting contest as four-time sitting MP Preneet Kaur, wife of former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, is stepping into a new political arena by contesting on a BJP ticket for the first time.

Kaur faces Congress candidate Dharamvir Gandhi and the Aam Aadmi Party's Balbir Singh in the polls. Gandhi had won the Patiala seat in 2014 as an AAP candidate, defeating Kaur, who represented the Congress at the time.

In Patna, former Union minister and BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad is locked in a contest against the Congress' Anshul Avijit, son of former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar.

The Patna seat has been a stronghold of the BJP, with the party winning it with a 60% vote share in 2019.