Lok Sabha election results 2019: Here are some key candidates and constituencies to watch out for ahead of counting of votes

Rahul Gandhi vs Smriti Irani (Amethi): The battle for Amethi has become intense in 2019 as the BJP has again fielded Union minister Smriti Irani against Rahul. In 2014, although Rahul defeated her, Irani was able to secure 3 lakh votes reducing Congress president’s victory margin significantly from 3.7 lakh in the 2009 polls to over a lakh votes in 2014.

Rajnath Singh vs Poonam Sinha (Lucknow): Rajnath Singh had won the Lucknow seat in 2014 garnering 55.7 percent of the total 10,06,483 votes polled and winning in all the five assembly segments of the parliamentary constituency. The Mahagathbandhan has fielded actor Poonam Sinha, the wife of former BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha. There is reportedly four lakh Kayastha voters and 1.3 lakh Sindhi voters in Lucknow, apart from 3.5 lakh Muslims, which is expected to benefit Poonam due to her Sindhi ancestry and Shatrughan’s Kayastha background. Sinha is also the richest candidate in the country’s fifth phase polls with total assets of Rs 193.54 crore. ( Image courtesy: Facebook)

Rajiv Pratap Rudy vs Chandrika Rai (Saran): Earlier known by the name Chapra, the Saran Lok Sabha seat was a pocket borough of RJD patriarch Lalu Prasad, who had got elected from there a number of times. This time RJD has fielded Chandrika Rai, whose daughter Aishwarya is married to Prasad's elder son Tej Pratap Yadav, against union minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy who’s seeking another term. Rudy had defeated former chief minister and Lalu Prasad’s wife Rabri Devi in 2014. (Image courtesy: Facebook & viewpatna.blogspot.com)

Rajyavardhan Rathore vs Krishna Punia (Jaipur Rural): Colonel Rathore is facing-off against Congress candidate Krishna Poonia in a keenly-watched contest between the two Olympians. Poonia is Commonwealth gold medallist in the discus throw and Rajyavardhan Rathore is Olympic Games silver medalist in the shooting. Poonia is now a sitting MLA from Sadulpur after defeating BSP MLA Manoj Nyangli and BJP veteran Ram Singh Kaswan in the 2018 assembly polls. Rathore had defeated Congress veteran CP Joshi by over three lakh votes. Rajputs make up about 10 percent of votes in the constituency. ( Image courtesy: Facebook)

Sheila Dikshit vs Manoj Tiwari (North East Delhi): Sheila Dikshit needs no introduction as the veteran Congress leader and the party’s chief in Delhi has served the national capital as its longest chief minister, holding the post for 15 years from 1998 to 2013. She is pitted against BJP’s incumbent Bhojpuri actor-singer-turned politician Manoj Tiwari and AAP’s Dilip Pandey. Tiwari had defeated AAP's Professor Anand Kumar in the 2014 General Elections, while the Congress candidate Jay Prakash Agarwal secured the third highest number of votes. The constituency has a significant population of Bhojpuri and Muslim voters.

Akhilesh Yadav (Azamgarh): Akhilesh is facing main challenge from BJP’s Bhojpuri actor-turned-politician Dinesh Lal Yadav aka Nirahua in what is largely considered a safe seat for the Samajwadi Party. Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav had won this seat (one among five SP could win) despite the Modi wave that had swept the entire state of Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 General Elections.

Shatrughan Sinha vs Ravi Shankar Prasad (Patna Sahib): Shatrughan Sinha is seeking to retain the seat for a third consecutive term, this time on a Congress ticket, surmounting a formidable challenge posed by Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Named after a centuries-old Sikh gurudwara located on the banks of the Ganga, where the 10th Sikh Guru Gobind Singh was born and spent his early childhood, Patna Sahib Lok Sabha seat came into being in the delimitation of 2008. Sinha won it in 2009 and retained the seat five years later.

Nitin Gadkari (Nagpur): Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari is hoping to retain his Lok Sabha constituency of Nagpur. The constituency has huge symbolic value as the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the party’s ideological parent, is located here. His main opponent is Nanabhau Patole, who was with the BJP till 2017, when he quit to join the Congress. (Getty Images)

VK Singh (Ghaziabad): The former General and MoS for External Affairs is pitted against the SP-BSP alliance candidate Suresh Bansal from the Samajwadi Party and Dolly Sharma from the Congress. Earlier in 2014, the BJP won this seat with a huge margin of 5,67,260 votes (42.3 per cent) when Singh defeated Congress’s actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar.

Asaduddin Owaisi (Hyderabad): All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) President and incumbent MP from the Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency, Asaduddin Owaisi, is seeking a re-election from his party bastion. Owaisi has won all the Lok Sabha elections from the constituency since 2004. The seat had been held by his father Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi for six consecutive terms since 1984.

Farooq Abdullah (Srinagar): The former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir has lost only once in his four-decade-long career when he was defeated by PDP’s Tariq Hamid Karra in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in Srinagar. But, he won the seat in the 2017 bye-election. This time Abdullah is pitted against PDP’s Aga Syed Mohsin, Khalid Jahangir from the BJP and People’s Conference’s Irfan Ansari. (Image courtesy: Kuntal Chakrabarty/IANS)

Tejaswi Surya vs BK Hariprasad (Bangalore South): The Bangalore South Lok Sabha constituency has been a BJP stronghold since 1991 and held by late Ananth Kumar since 1996. In the 2014 General Election, Ananth Kumar had defeated the Congress candidate Nandan Nilekani with a margin of 2,28,575 votes. He obtained 56.9 per cent of the overall votes. BJP fielded its surprise pick Tejasvi Surya against senior Congress leader BK Hariprasad. (Image courtesy: Facebook & Twitter)

Mulayam Singh Yadav (Mainpuri): The Samajwadi Party patriarch contested from another party stronghold with his main rival being BJP's Prem Singh Shakya. The Congress did not field any candidate, and so it has been reduced to a direct contest. The BJP has never won this seat, which is currently held by Yadav’s grandnephew Tej Pratap Singh Yadav. Four of Yadav’s six Lok Sabha victories have been from Mainpuri – in 1996, 2004, 2009 and 2014. In the outgoing Lok Sabha, Mulayam represented Azamgarh.

Mehbooba Mufti (Anantnag): The Anantnag Parliamentary constituency voted in three phases – on April 23, 29 and May 6. Mufti contested against Congress’ Ghulam Ahmad Mir and the National Conference’s Hasnain Masoodi. The BJP has fielded Sofi Mohammad Yousuf from the seat. The Peoples Democratic Party chief hasn't lost an election since she began her political career in 1996.

Shashi Tharoor (Thiruvananthapuram): After a spectacular electoral debut in 2009 when he defeated his rival by almost a lakh votes, Shashi Tharoor defeated his BJP rival O Rajagopal by just over 15,000 votes in the 2014 polls. BJP is hoping to open its account in Kerala with the party pitting arguably its biggest vote catcher, former state president and ex-Mizoram governor Kummanam Rajasekharan, to win the seat this election. (Image courtesy: TED / James Duncan Davidson)

Amit Shah (Gandhinagar): BJP President Amit Shah, a member of the Rajya Sabha, is making his Lok Sabha election debut from a seat held by veteran party leader LK Advani since 1991, barring a two-year period. He is pitted against Congress’ CJ Chavda, who represents the Gandhinagar North seat in the Assembly. | (Image courtesy: REUTERS)

Digvijay Singh vs Pragya Thakur (Bhopal): It is one of the most keenly awaited results on May 23. The BJP hasn't lost the Bhopal Lok Sabha seat since 1989 and party fielding Pragya Singh Thakur, who is an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts and is out on bail, will give the former MP CM Diggi Raja as he is often called a tough time. Digvijaya Singh was in the forefront of the Congress to ramp up the "saffron terror" charge against the Sangh Parivar. He last contested a Lok Sabha election from Rajgarh in 1993. (Image courtesy: Twitter)

Urmila Matondkar (Mumbai North): Urmila contested against incumbent BJP MP Gopal Shetty after Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam was unwilling to contest the elections this time. Shetty had beaten Nirupam by over 4 lakh votes in 2014. News18-IPSOS suggests that BJP candidate Gopal Shetty may emerge as the winner from the seat in the state of Maharashtra.

Milind Deora (Mumbai South): Congress leader Milind Deora has contested the Mumbai South Lok Sabha seat against the Shiv Sena’s Arvind Sawant. Despite having won it in 2004 and 2009, Deora had lost the seat to Sawant in 2014 by a margin of 128,564 votes. His father, Murli Deora, had represented the constituency for three terms from 1984.

Kanhaiya Kumar (Begusarai): The contest in Bihar’s Begusarai between Communist Party of India’s Kanhaiya Kumar, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Giriraj Singh and the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tanvir Hassan has drawn enormous attention. Kanhaiya Kumar shot into national prominence as a student leader at Jawaharlal Nehru University has become a prominent face of dissent against the Narendra Modi government. The 66-year-old Singh, a minister in the Modi government, is the face of hardline Hindutva in Bihar. The Rashtriya Janata Dal, meanwhile, fielded 62-year-old Tanvir Hassan, making it a triangular contest. (Image courtesy: Twitter, Kanhaiya Kumar)

Gautam Gambhir (East Delhi): One of the most-watched contests in Delhi’s ‘yamuna-paar’ area is between BJP’s cricketer-turned-politician candidate Gautam Gambhir, who is making his maiden foray in the hurly-burly world of politics. Gambhir is facing the Congress party’s Sikh candidate Arvinder Singh Lovely, who has held various positions in the Delhi government under the Sheila Dikshit regime. Lovely briefly joined BJP in 2017 but returned to the Congress fold the next year. What makes the East Delhi Lok Sabha seat truly interesting is the Aam Aadmi Party candidate Atishi, who has served as an advisor to Delhi’s education minister and deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia. Atshi has been credited for playing a key role in bringing about reforms in Delhi’s government school. Gambhir was nominated by the BJP after the saffron party denied ticket to incumbent Mahesh Giri. (Image courtesy: IANS)

Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna): The young Congress leader is aiming for a fifth straight win from the family bastion against BJP's KP Yadav, an MBBS doctor. The Guna Lok Sabha seat has been with the Scindia royals with earlier represented by Jyotiraditya's late grandmother Vijaya Raje Scindia and father Madhavrao Scindia.

Raghav Chadha (South Delhi): The South Delhi constituency is seeing an interesting fight between a young leader, Raghav Chadha of the Aam Aadmi Party, and Ramesh Bidhuri of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Congress has fielded Olympian Vijender Singh. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Ramesh Bidhuri defeated Colonel Devinder Sehrawat of the AAP by a margin of 1,07,000 (9.7 percent) votes.

Varun Gandhi (Pilibhit): Varun’s first term as an MP was from Pilibhit in 2009 and he is facing challenge from former MLA Hemraj Verma, fielded by the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance.

Maneka Gandhi (Sultanpur): The other Gandhi family daughter-in-law won the Pilibhit seat as a member of the BJP in 2014. The party this time decided to have her swap seats with her son Varun for the 2019 polls. The mother-son duo has held the seat since 1996.

Harsimrat Kaur Badal (Bathinda): For her, the 2014 contest with estranged family member Manpreet Badal was the toughest because he was a joint candidate of all the opposition parties and she just managed to scrape through. This time, her main challenger is Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, a Congress MLA from Gidderbaha falling under Faridkot Lok Sabha seat.

Babul Supriyo vs Moon Moon Sen (Asansol): Supriyo won one of only two seats the BJP holds in the state, defeating Trinamool's Dola Sen. This time Mamata has fielded actor-turned-politician Moon Moon Sen from the parliamentary constituency. (Image courtesy: Facebook & Twitter)

K Kanimozhi vs T Sundararajan (Thoothukkudi): Late DMK leader M Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi is taking on BJP state chief T Sundararajan. In 2014, AIADMK’s Jeyasingh Thiyagaraj Natterjee won the seat with a margin of 366,052 votes over DMK’s P Jegan.