Smriti Irani to Rajeev Chandrasekhar: List of union ministers who miserably lost 2024 polls

News Network
June 5, 2024

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BJP heavyweights Smriti Irani, Arjun Munda and Ajay Mishra Teni, among others, were unseated in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. These losses, particularly in the Hindi heartland, have forced the BJP to lean on its NDA partners to form the government. 

This marks a deviation from the sweeping mandates of 2014 and 2019, when the BJP garnered 282 and 303 seats respectively, achieving a majority on its own.

The Election Commission of India has declared the results for 542 out of the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies so far. The BJP has secured 240 seats, while the Indian National Congress trails with 99.

The Ones Who Lost

Smriti Irani: One of the most high-profile defeats was that of Smriti Irani in Amethi. Ms Irani, who had famously defeated Rahul Gandhi in 2019, lost to Congress candidate Kishori Lal Sharma by a margin of 1,67,196 votes. This defeat marked the end of an era in Amethi, which had briefly been a BJP bastion under Ms Irani's stewardship.

Ajay Mishra Teni: The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, embroiled in the controversial Lakhimpur Kheri incident, was defeated by the Samajwadi Party's Utkarsh Verma by over 34,329 votes.

Arjun Munda: The Union Tribal Affairs Minister faced a crushing defeat in Jharkhand's Khunti constituency, losing to Congress candidate Kalicharan Munda by 1,49,675 votes. 

Kailash Choudhary: In Rajasthan's Barmer, Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare, Kailash Choudhary, finished third, trailing by 4.48 lakh votes behind the victorious Ummeda Ram Beniwal of the Congress.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar: In Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram, the Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, lost to Congress stalwart Shashi Tharoor by over 16,077 votes. 

The BJP's setbacks weren't limited to these prominent figures. Ministers such as Mahendra Nath Pandey, Kaushal Kishore, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Sanjeev Balyan, Rao Saheb Danve, RK Singh, V Muraleedharan, L Murugan, Subhas Sarkar and Nishith Pramanik also faced defeats in the polls.

Mahendra Nath Pandey, the Union Minister of Heavy Industries lost his Chandauli seat in Uttar Pradesh. Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs, Kaushal Kishore lost against Samajwadi Party's RK Chaudhary by 70,292 votes in Mohanlalganj.

Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, the Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution, lost in UP's Fatehpur. Rao Saheb Danve, the Minister of State for Railways, lost the Jalna seat in Maharashtra to Congress' Kalyan Vaijnath Rao Kale. Cabinet Minister Rk Singh lost to CPI(ML)'s Sudama Prasad from Bihar's Arrah.

Union Minister Sanjeev Balyan was defeated in the Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha seat by Samajwadi Party's Harendra Singh Malik by a margin of over 24,000 votes.

V Muraleedharan, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Parliamentary Affairs, was defeated in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram. L Murugan, the Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairying, lost to DMK's A Raja in Tamil Nadu's Nilgiris by a substantial margin of 2,40,585 votes.

Nishith Pramanik, the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, lost the Cooch Behar seat in West Bengal to TMC's Jagadish Chandra Basunia by over 39,000 votes.

Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar was defeated by Trinamool Congress candidate Arup Chakraborty in the Bankura Lok Sabha seat of West Bengal by a margin of 32,778 votes.

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News Network
November 24,2025

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Israeli forces have pushed over the Syrian frontier, erecting a checkpoint and stopping vehicles in the southwestern city of Quneitra, in yet another breach of the Arab country’s sovereignty.

The violation took place on Sunday, when the troops made their way across the border, setting up the outpost near the Ain al-Bayda junction in northern Quneitra, Syrian outlets reported.

According to the al-Ikhbariya paper, an Israeli detachment positioned itself at the junction, halting cars and conducting searches.

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that three Israeli military vehicles then moved further into the northern countryside, deploying between the town of Jubata al-Khashab and the villages of Ofaniya and Ain al-Bayda. The agency added that a separate Israeli unit mounted a new incursion in the central region, approaching the villages of Umm Batina and al-Ajraf.

Residents said such activities have surged in recent months, pointing to Israeli advances onto farmland, leveling of extensive forested areas, arrests, and spread of mobile checkpoints.

The Israeli regime began markedly increasing its military aggression against Syria last year.

The escalation coincided with increasingly ferocious onslaughts throughout the country by the so-called Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Takfiri terrorist group, which the government of President Bashar al-Assad had confined to northwestern Syria. The HTS, however, managed to overthrow the government as the Israeli attacks would pummel the country’s civilian and defensive infrastructure.

Various reports have shown that, during the escalation, the regime conducted more than 1,000 airstrikes on the Syrian territory and over 400 ground raids into the south.

Following the collapse of the Assad government, Tel Aviv also widened its grip over the occupied Golan Heights by taking control of a demilitarized buffer zone, in defiance of a 1974 Disengagement Agreement. Earlier this month, senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the buffer zone, prompting expressions of alarm on the part of the United Nations.

The United States, the regime’s biggest ally, has, meanwhile, been fraternizing the HTS head Abu Mohammed al-Jolani amid the widely reported prospect of rapprochement with Tel Aviv.

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News Network
November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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News Network
December 4,2025

Udupi: A 40-year-old NRI from Udupi has reportedly lost more than Rs 12.25 lakh in an online investment scam operated through Telegram.

According to a complaint filed at the CEN police station, Leo Jerome Mendonsa, who has been working in Dubai for the past 15 years in computer accessories sales, maintains NRI accounts in Karkala and Nitte.

On November 12, 2025, Mendonsa was added to a Telegram group called Instaflow Earnings by unknown individuals. Users identified as Priya and Dipannita persuaded him to invest in “Revenue Tasks.” Initially, Mendonsa transferred Rs 1,100 multiple times and received the promised returns, encouraging him to continue.

On November 14, another user, Nishmitha Shetty, directed him to register on a website, digitvisionuoce.cc, and invest Rs 4 lakh in various shares. Over the next few days, he made multiple transfers totaling Rs 12,25,000, including Rs 50,000 via Google Pay, believing the scheme was legitimate.

After receiving the money, the alleged handlers stopped responding, and neither the invested amount nor the promised profits were returned.

The CEN police have registered a case under Sections 66(C) and 66(D) of the IT Act and Section 318(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and investigations are ongoing.

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