Prime Minister Narendra Modi has filed his nomination from Varanasi for the third consecutive time. He is currently the sitting Member of Parliament from the constituency since 2014 when he first came to power. He won both the previous elections by increasing margins and looks set to win the election in 2024 as well.
Prior to filing the nomination, Narendra Modi visited Baba Kaal Bhairav to pray. While filing the nomination, several prominent leaders of the National Democratic Alliance joined the Prime Minister in Varanasi to show support. The leaders included Eknath Shinde, Jitan Ram Manjhi, Chandrababu Naidu, Sanjay Nishad, Ramdas Athwale, and Omprakash Rajbhar.
The proposers for the nomination were Pandit Ganeshwar Shastri, Baijnath Patel, Lalchand Kushwaha and Sanjay Sonkar. Apart from the proposers, PM Modi filed his nomination in front of the District Magistrate of Varanasi S Rajalingam and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
In 2014, PM Narendra Modi had filed his nomination from Varanasi and won with a 56% vote share and 5,81,022 total votes. In 2019, PM Modi won with an even greater margin of 63.62% vote share and 6,74,664 total votes.
Post the filing of nominations, the Prime Minister headed towards a meeting with the local Bharatiya Janata Party workers in Varanasi as a show of support.
The previous election resulted in a landslide victory for the BJP winning 303 seats with a 37.6% voter share across the nation and the NDA gaining 353 seats overall much higher than the leading opposition party Indian National Congress which won only 52 seats.
In this election, his major competitor from the Indian National Congress will be Ajay Rai. The voting in Varanasi will be on 1st June 2024 as part of the Phase 7 of voting in the ongoing Lok Sabha Elections.
The results will be announced on June 4th 2024 for the largest ever Lok Sabha Elections in Indian history second only to the 1951-1952 Lok Sabha Elections.