Amit Shah, Rahul Gandhi, Mulayam among key candidates in fray in third phase of Lok Sabha election

Polling for 117 Lok Sabha constituencies spread across 13 states and two Union Territories are currently underway on Tuesday. Voting is being held 26 seats in Gujarat, 20 in Kerala, two in Goa, one each in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu in the third phase on Tuesday. Besides, polling will also be held in four seats in Assam, five in Bihar, seven in Chhattisgarh, one in Jammu and Kashmir, 14 in Karnataka, 14 in Maharashtra, six in Odisha, 10 in Uttar Pradesh, five in West Bengal and one in Tripura.

This phase will decide the fate of the chiefs of the BJP and the Congress. Amit Shah, who replaced L K Advani as the party nominee from Gandhinagar in Gujarat, will face Congress’ CJ Chavda. Rahul Gandhi, who is contesting from Wayanad in Kerala besides his traditional Amethi seat in Uttar Pradesh, will face BJP ally Bharath Dharma Jana Sena’s Thushar Vellapally and Left Democratic Front’s PP Suneer.

Uttar Pradesh's Rampur is witnessing a tough fight between BJP`s Jaya Prada and Samajwadi Party's Azam Khan. 

Anantnag parliamentary seat is which witnessing a triangular contest between Congress' Ghulam Ahmad Mir, former J&K chief minister and Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti and National Conference heavyweight Hasnain Masoodi.

In North Goa, BJP's Shripad Yesso Naik is facing Congress’ Girish Chodankar while in Karnataka's Kalaburagi the face-off is between Congress’ Mallikarjun Kharge and BJP’s Umesh Jadhav.

Other prominent faces in this election are Union minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar who is fighting from UP's Bareilly, BJP's Varun Gandhi from UP's Pilibhit, Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD) president Sharad Yadav from Bihar's Madhepura and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor from Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram. 

Over 18 crore 85 lakh voters, including 96598912 male, 86226460 female and 7043 third gender voters, will decide the fate of nearly 1640 candidates in the third phase.