Royalties from BJP win LS polls

Three candidates of the BJP among the total 12 from erstwhile royal families won the Lok Sabha elections, according to the Election Commission. One candidate of the saffron party was leading the contest.

In Rajasthan, three candidates from royal families contested in the 17th Lok Sabha elections. Bharatiya Janata Party's Diya Kumari of the Jaipur royal family won the contest with over 5.5 lakh votes more than her closest rival, Devkinandan, of the Congress in the Rajsamand Lok Sabha constituency.

BJP candidate and sitting MP Dushyant Singh, the son of former chief minister Vasundhara Raje and scion of the erstwhile Dholpur royal family, bagged more than 4.5 lakh votes against his Congress rival Pramod Sharma in the Jhalawar-Baran constituency. However, Congress's Bhanwar Jitendra Singh of the erstwhile Alwar royal family lost the contest with a margin of more than 3.2 lakh votes against the BJP's Balak Nath in the Alwar constituency.

In Madhya Pradesh, where Jyotiraditya Scindia of erstwhile princely state of Gwalior contested from Guna, the Congress leader lost the seat to BJP's Krishna Pal Singh by a margin of over 1.25 lakh votes. In Uttar Pradesh, three candidates from erstwhile royal families are contesting from Pratapgarh, Kushi Nagar and Gonda.

The Congress's Pratapgarh candidate, Rajkumari Ratna Singh of the erstwhile Kalakankar royal family, was left with the third position with a little over 77,000 votes, while the leading candidate, the BJP's Sangam Lal Gupta, took the seat with a margin of over 4.36 lakh votes. BJP's Kirti Vardhan Singh, also known as Raja Bhaiya, of the erstwhile Mankapur royal family, won the seat by over 1.6 lakh votes against his Samajwadi Party rival Vinod Kumar in Gonda constituency.

Kunwer Ratanjit Pratap Singh, contesting on a Congress ticket from Kushi Nagar, remained at the third position with 1,46,151 votes, while BJP's Vijay Kumar Dubey won the seat with a winning margin of over 3.37 lakh votes. In Odisha, BJP's Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo was leading with 4,888 votes against her brother-in-law and sitting MP Biju Janta Dal's Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo of the erstwhile princely state of Patna.

The BJD candidate from Kalahandi in Odisha, Puspendra Singh Deo of Dharmagarh family, was trailing by over 22,000 votes against the BJP's Basanta Kumar Panda. Congress's candidate from Udhampur constituency of Jammu and Kashmir, Vikramaditya Singh, the grandson of Maharaja Hari Singh, lost the seat to Union minister and BJP leader Jitendra Singh with a margin of over 3.5 lakh votes.

Pravasi Nivasi Party candidate Pandalam Keralavaramraja of the Pandalam royal family secured only 1,695 votes in Thiruvananthapuram, where Congress leader Shashi Tharoor retained his seat with a winning margin of 9,99,89 votes.