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Amravati (Maharashtra): Amravati MLA Ravi Rana has claimed Shiv Sena (UBT) head and former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray will join the Modi government in 15 days after the Lok Sabha election results come out on Tuesday.

Ravi Rana's wife Navneet Rana, the sitting MP from Amravati, contested the Lok Sabha poll from the seat this time on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's ticket.

In 2019, Navneet Rana won the Lok Sabha poll from Amravati as an independent candidate.

Speaking to reporters here on Sunday, the MLA from Badnera in Amravati district said he knows the way Uddhav Thackeray and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut have been speaking about Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"I can confidently say that 15 days after Modi ji becomes the prime minister again, Uddhav Thackeray will be seen in the Modi government and with Modi ji, because the coming era is of Modi ji and Uddhav Thackeray knows it," Ravi Rana claimed.

Leaders of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in the state should keep blood pressure medicines and doctors with them as many of them will fall sick on June 4, the day of vote counting, the Yuva Swabhiman Party MLA said.

The MVA comprises the Shiv Sena (UBT), Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP). The legislator expressed confidence that his wife Navneet Rana will win the Amravati Lok Sabha seat by a margin of more than two lakh votes.

Navneet Rana will become MP again as all sections of the society have voted for her in large numbers, he added.

In Amravati, Navneet Rana was pitted against Congress MLA Balwant Wankhede and Dinesh Bub of the Prahar Janshakti Party.

The Rana couple had taken on the MVA government over the recitation of Hanuman Chalisa in April 2022 when Uddhav Thackeray was the chief minister.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has won the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat for a third time. Mr Modi has beaten the Congress' Ajay Rai by over 1.5 lakh votes. In third place was the Bahujan Samaj Party's Ather Jamal Lari, who finished nearly 5.8 lakh behind the Prime Minister.

The party has won this seat nine times since 1991, with only RK Mishra of the Congress, in 2004, breaking that streak. And it was, for some time, another Congressman who raised opposition hopes.

Earlier today Mr Rai - who has contested and lost each of the past three general elections from the temple town - threatened (briefly) to cause, perhaps, the biggest shock in Indian electoral history.

Initially Mr Rai was leading the Prime Minister by 6,223 votes. As the day wore on, though, the PM stretched his legs and disappeared into the distance, finishing with over 6.12 lakh votes.

However, delight over the Prime Minister's win is likely to be tempered by the BJP's less-than-stellar performance across the state in this election, despite having dominated its electoral politics since 2014, when a 'Modi wave' swept UP (and the country) and corralled 61 of its 80 Lok Sabha seats.

Since then the BJP has been nearly unbeatable in UP.

That was followed by a Yogi Adityanath-led BJP scripting a stunning revival at the state level - by winning 312 of the state's 403 Assembly seats. In 2012 the BJP had won only 47 seats.

Yogi Adityanath claimed a second term in 2022, despite the party being heavily criticised over the farmers' protests. And, before that, the BJP amassed 62 seats in the 2019 general election.

The 2024 Lok Sabha election in UP was expected to be no different, at least according to exit pollsters, who handed Mr Modi's party a big win. A poll of exit polls gave the BJP 68 seats.

The Congress-led INDIA bloc was only expected to get 12 seats.

The reality, though, has been starkly different.

Driven by Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, the INDIA group has gone head-to-head with the BJP in UP and will, most likely, finish a distant second - an unthinkable result before today.

The SP is set to win 38 seats - a record haul for the party in Lok Sabha polls - if the numbers hold, while the Congress will win seven. Crucially, the Congress is set to win back the Amethi bastion it lost to the BJP's Smriti Irani five years ago; the outgoing Union Minister had beaten Rahul Gandhi.

However, it is not Mr Gandhi who will gain revenge for the Congress.

It will be Kishor Lal Sharma, after Rahul Gandhi opted to contest the Raebareli seat - in addition to defending his Wayanad seat - left vacant by his mother Sonia Gandhi's shift to the Rajya Sabha.

Mr Gandhi is en route to massive wins from both seats.

The turnaround in UP is the story of the day and underlines the INDIA bloc's surprising challenge to the BJP, which includes tight contests in two other battleground states - Bengal and Maharashtra.

In Bengal Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool fought off an early surge from the BJP and is likely to improve on its haul of 22 (of 42) seats from the 2019 election. More importantly, it will knock back the BJP in the eastern state, from which much was expected after a record haul of 18 last time.

Meanwhile, in Maharashtra the Maha Vikas Aghadi, despite being rocked by splits within the Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar's NCP, has dominated. The MVA, which also includes the Congress, is on course to win 29 of 48 seats in a state in which the BJP was hoping to make big gains.

Maharashtra Deputy CM and NCP chief Ajit Pawar on Sunday informed that the BJP had offered a Ministry of State portfolio with independent charge to Praful Patel. He said Patel has served as a cabinet minister in the central government and "we did not feel right in taking the Minister of State with independent charge". So we told them (BJP) that we are ready to wait for a few days, but we want a cabinet ministry. We are going to attend the swearing-in ceremony today..."

Pawar said, "We have one Lok Sabha and one Rajya Sabha MP today, but in the next 2-3 months we will have a total of 3 members in the Rajya Sabha and our number of MPs in Parliament will be 4. So we said we should be given one (cabinet ministry) seat."

Praful Patel said that last night, he was informed that his party would get a Minister of State with independent charge. "I was earlier a Cabinet Minister in the Union Government, so this will be a demotion for me. We have informed the BJP leadership and they have already told us to just wait for a few days, they will take remedial measures."

The NCP contested 4 seats in Maharashtra but could win only 1. NCP's other two allies in the state Sena and BJP bagged 7 and 9 seats respectively.