Nadda to address election rally in Port Blair on Thursday

Port Blair, Apr 10 (PTI) BJP president JP Nadda will address an election rally in Port Blair on Thursday. He will land at Port Blair around 2.15 pm, and address the rally at ITF Ground at 3 pm in support of BJP candidate Bishnu Pada Ray. Nadda will leave the Union Territory in the evening. The lone Lok Sabha seat of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands will go to the polls in the first phase on April 19.

Ray will take on incumbent Congress MP Kuldeep Rai Sharma, his long-time electoral rival. Ray was first elected to the Lok Sabha from the constituency in 1999 when he defeated Sharma. He again won in 2009 and 2014. In the 2019 elections, the BJP had fielded Vishal Jolly, denying nomination to Ray. Congress’s Sharma had defeated Jolly by a slender margin of 1,407 votes.