New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who made his Lok Sabha debut from Varanasi constituency in 2014, will contest from the same seat in the upcoming general elections, senior BJP leaders said.
However, a decision on PM Modi contesting from a second seat (Vadodara was his second seat in 2014) would be taken depending on the progress of the BJP election campaign, they said.
With the local unit of the Congress demanding that newly appointed Uttar Pradesh (East) general secretary Priyanka Gandhi be pitted against Modi to galvanise voters of the Hindi heartland state, and with speculation rife that Patidar quota leader Hardik Patel may also throw his hat in the ring from Varanasi, a mouth-watering contest cannot be ruled out.
In 2014, Modi had won the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat by defeating AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal by a massive margin of 3.37 lakh votes, the highest recorded in the constituency.