Indian PM Modi files nomination for parliamentary polls
New Delhi: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday filed his nomination papers from the Varanasi parliamentary constituency in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh where he had comfortably won in last general elections held in 2014.
Polling of votes in Varanasi is scheduled to take place in the last and seventh phase to be held on May 19. So far three phases of the elections have taken place on April 11, 18 and Tuesday.
Elections results are slated to be announced on May 23.
Modi was accompanied by around 28 political leaders representing different political parties which are the allies of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Besides, senior BJP leaders including Party President Amit Shah, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Home Minister (Internal Security) Rajnath Singh also accompanied Modi during his nomination.
Modi belongs to the western state of Gujarat. But in the 2014 general elections, besides the Vadodara parliamentary constituency in Gujarat, he chose to contest from Varanasi as it is located in politically most important state Uttar Pradesh which has 80 parliamentary constituencies out of the total 543 in lower house Lok Sabha which go to polls every five years.
He had won from both the constituencies (Varanasi and Vadodara), but he resigned from Vadodara and represented Varanasi in the Lok Sabha for the past five years.