in Maharashtra’s Maval , Amol Kolhe trailing

Parth Pawar, the grand-nephew of NCP chief Sharad Pawar, is leading in Maval Lok Sabha seat of Maharashtra, as per initial trends available.

Parth, son of former state deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, is leading by 1,173 votes over Shiv Sena’s sitting MP Shrirang Barne.

Rahul Gandhi leads in Amethi

The fight to retain the family bastion of Amethi has been one of the fiercest of contests of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

With the SP-BSP alliance staying out of the contest in Amethi, Rahul faced a straight contest from Union minister Smiriti Irani who accused him of shifting to Wayanad (Kerala) for fear of losing in Amethi that he had represented since 2004.

10:10 am IST

In Gujarat, BJP leads in 4 seats, Congress ahead in 1

heBJP is leading in four of the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat, including Gandhinagar where party president Amit Shah is contesting, while the Congress is ahead in one seat, as per initial trends.

Shah is ahead by over 19,000 votes against his nearest rival and Congress candidate C J Chavda, after counting of first round, election officials said.

10:05 am IST

Huge gains for BJP in Karnataka in early rounds

In the early rounds of counting for the 28 Lok Sabha seats in the state on Thursday, the Bharatiya Janata Party was leading in 23 seats till 9.50 am.

In Bengaluru, the Congress led in the North and Central constituencies, whereas the BJP’s Tejasvi Surya amassed a significant lead over his rival BK Hariprasad of the BJP in the Bengaluru South constituency.

Elsewhere,