PM Modi, his ministers lead, Smriti Irani only exception

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, June 4

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and all top ministers of his cabinet were leading in counting trends at 11 am with Smriti  Irani the only one trailing significantly to Congress leader Kishori Lal Sharma in Amethi parliamentary seat.

PM Modi was leading by 33,206 votes over Congress’s Ajay Raj in Varanasi after initially trailing marginally in early trends.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah with 2,14,167 votes’ lead in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar had the highest lead among all ministers as of 11 am, followed by minister Puroshottam Rupala in Rajkot whose lead was the second highest at 2,05,076 and Mansukh Mandaviya who led by 1,66,890 votes in Porbandar.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh is comfortably ahead of his nearest SP rival in Lucknow by 14,396 votes and Road Transport minister Nitin Gadkari was leading in Nagpur by 27,755 votes.

Commerce minister Piyush Goyal had a 40,198 vote lead in his maiden Lok Sabha poll from Mumbai north and Environment minister Bhupendra Yadav was leading in Rajasthan’s Alwar by 42,784 votes.

A major lead for BJP is in Thiruvananthapuram where IT minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar is leading over Congress’s Shashi Tharoor by a slender margin of 5,026 votes.

In Kerala’s 20 leads, the BJP has two in Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur where actor Suresh Gopi of the BJP is ahead of the CPI by 30,284 votes.

If these leads hold, the BJP would be opening its account in Kerala for the first time.