Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest again from Varanasi in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as the Bharatiya Janata Party released its first list of 195 candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, naming 34 Union ministers, including heavyweights such as Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh from their current Gandhinagar and Lucknow seats respectively. The BJP list also included two former ministers and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, who once again got a ticket from Rajasthan’s Kota, and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from Vidisha.
The BJP’s first list included 51 seats from Uttar Pradesh, 24 from Madhya Pradesh, 20 from West Bengal, 15 each from Gujarat and Rajasthan, 12 from Kerala, nine from Telangana, 11 each from Assam, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, five from Delhi, three from Uttarakhand, two each from Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, and one each from Goa, Tripura, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Daman and Diu. It also replaced as many as 33 sitting MPs with new faces.
Lok Sabha election: BJP’s first list of candidates | 10 points
- In the first list, the BJP fielded Union ministers such as Mansukh Mandaviya, Jitendra Singh, Sarbananda Sonowal, Gajendra Shekhawat, Bhupender Yadav, G Kishan Reddy, Kiren Rijiju, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Arjun Ram Meghwal and Arjun Munda.
- The BJP made major changes for Delhi, dropping Ramesh Bidhuri, Parvesh Verma, Meenakshi Lekhi and Harsh Vardhan from their respective seats. The party has named Praveen Khandelwal as its candidate from Chandani Chowk, Kamaljeet Sehrawat from the West Delhi seat, Bansuri Swaraj, daughter of late BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, from New Delhi and Ramvir Singh Bidhuri from South Delhi.
- The BJP fielded Bhojpuri singer and actor Pawan Singh from Asansol in West Bengal.
- The list also included 28 women and 47 young leaders. In Jharkhand, former Congress MP Geeta Koda has been fielded from Singhbhum (ST reserved).
- Paralympian Devendra Jhajharia is the BJP candidate from Rajasthan’s Churu and will replace sitting MP Rahul Kaswan. Jhajharia, a Paralympic javelin thrower and the first Indian athlete to win two Gold medals at the Paralympics expressed gratitude to the party leadership for the ticket.
- In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP showcased prominent names such as former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia. The changes saw Bhopal MP Pragya Singh Thakur being replaced by Alok Sharma, a former mayor.
- In Uttar Pradesh, the party has fielded former BSP MP Ritesh Pandey from Ambedkar Nagar, while Hema Malini, Ravi Kishan, Mahesh Sharma, SPS Baghel and Sakshi Maharaj are among those being repeated from their seats.
- Union minister Smriti Irani, who will fight from Amethi again, also figured in the list.
- Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a three-time member of the Rajya Sabha, was fielded as a BJP candidate from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. The BJP) has set up a prospective poll contest between him and former Union minister Shashi Tharoor, who is a three-time Lok Sabha member of the Congress from the seat.
- One of the biggest surprises was fielding minister of state for home Ajay Mishra Teni from the Kheri constituency again. Teni’s son, Ajay Mishra Teni’s son Ashish Mishra had been jailed for his alleged involvement in mowing down four farmers in Lakhmipur Kheri in UP in 2021. The ongoing farmers’ protest includes justice for the victims.
