"Strong foundation of 'Viksit Bharat' will be laid today": Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on 1st phase voting

Bikaner (Rajasthan) [India], April 19 (ANI): As the voting for the first phase of the 2024 general elections began on Friday, Union Minister and BJP candidate from Bikaner Lok Sabha seat Arjun Ram Meghwal said a strong foundation of 'Viksit Bharat' will be laid today.
Rajasthan has 25 parliamentary constituencies and in Phase 1 of polling today, voting is being conducted for 12 seats. The remaining 13 seats in the state will be polled in the second phase on April 26. 114 candidates are in the fray in the first phase of the elections.
"It is the festival of democracy today. Voting will be done today on a total of 102 seats in the country and 12 seats in Rajasthan, including the Bikaner Lok Sabha seat. Today, a strong foundation of 'Viksit Bharat' will be laid. 'Viksit Bharat' is an overarching theme of the BJP under which the party is seeking votes in the election," Meghwa told ANI.
The constituencies in the first phase include Churu, Nagaurm, Ganganagar, Jhunjhunu, Bikaner, Sikar, Jaipur Rural, Jaipur, Alwar, Bharatpur, Karauli-Dholpur and Dausa.
Meghwal, a Dalit leader who has been representing the Bikaner Lok Sabha seat since 2009, is contesting the Lok Sabha elections for the fourth time. He is contesting against Congress candidate and former state minister Govind Ram Meghwal.
Bikaner has remained a BJP bastion since 2004, when the seat was won by actor Dharmendra. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the seat was won by Meghwal, who went on to become a minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet.
While the Congress struggled to secure victories in the general elections post-1999, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has consistently dominated this constituency from 2004 to 2019. A Meghwal, the current Member of Parliament from Bikaner, clinched victories in 2009, 2014, and 2019, solidifying Bikaner as a fortress for the BJP.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he secured 62.84 per cent of the votes, defeating his Congress rival Shankar Pannu. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he won for the third consecutive time with a margin of 2,64,081 votes, defeating the Congress candidate and his cousin, Madan Gopal Meghwal.
Voting for the first phase of Lok Sabha elections 2024 began at 7:00 am on Friday across 102 parliamentary constituencies spread over 21 states and Union Territories. Voting will end at 6 pm.
A total of 16.63 crore voters are going to vote in the first phase of Lok Sabha polls, deciding the fate of 1625 candidates, with Nitin Gadkari, Kiren Rijiju, Bhupendra Yadav, and Arjun Ram Meghwal among several Union ministers in the fray.
The counting of votes will be held on June 4. (ANI)