BJP releases 1st list of 195 candidates for Lok Sabha polls

New Delhi, Mar 2: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Saturday announced its first list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections with Prime Minister Narendra Modi set to contest from Varanasi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah from Gandhinagar, and Rajnath Singh from Lucknow.

Addressing a news conference, BJP leader Vinod Tawde announced the names of 195 candidates contesting the 2024 Parliamentary elections.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most high-profile name featured in the first list of the BJP for Parliamentary elections.

PM Modi would seek re-election to Lok Sabha from the Varanasi constituency in Uttar Pradesh. He has been contesting from there since 2014.

In the list, of the 195 nominees, two former chief ministers and Lok Sabha Speaker have been included.

A total of 34 Union Ministers and Ministers of States will be fielded again in the Lok Sabha polls.

Prominent among them are Union Home Minister Amit Shah who would contest from Gandhinagar, Rajnath Singh who would contest from Lucknow, and Smiriti Irani who would contest from Amethi.

Smriti Irani, who handed out a defeat to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from Amethi in the 2019 polls, will again seek re-election to Lok Sabha from this seat.

The party finalised the names of candidates during BJP's Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting chaired by PM Modi.

Out of 195 nominees, the BJP's pick for seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi took everyone by surprise.

Barring him, all other existing Parliamentarians including Meenakshi Lekhi, Ramesh Bidhuri, Parvesh Singh Verma and others have failed to get party tickets.

The highest number of nominees – 51, came from the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP has set an ambitious target of sweeping more than 75 of the total 80 seats.

Other popular faces contesting Lok Sabha polls on BJP ticket from Uttar Pradesh include former minister Mahesh Sharma (Gautam Budh Nagar), Satyapal Singh (Agra), actress-turned-politician Hema Malini (Mathura), Ravi Kishen (Gorakhpur), Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua (Azamgarh), Sanjeev Balyan (Muzaffarnagar), Ajay Mishra Teni (Lakhimpur Kheri), Mahendra Nath Pandey (Chandauli), Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur), Sakshi Maharaj (Unnao), among others.

Nirahua, a popular Bhojpuri actor-singer, created upheaval in Samajwadi Party's circles in the 2019 elections by snatching Azamgarh, the party's bastion, while Ravi Kishen won the Gorakhpur LS seat by a landslide margin.

Unveiling its Mission 2024, the party declared candidates from all across the country.

The list, featuring 34 sitting ministers and 2 former Chief Ministers, including 28 female nominees, 47 youth candidates, and 57 nominees from OBC, reinforces the party's social engineering strategy to strike the right chord with the voters, across all strata.

The BJP declared the names of candidates, almost over a month ahead of elections, to give the nominees more time to connect and mobilise voters on the ground.

The party, however, sprang a big surprise in Delhi as it dropped all its sitting MPs, except Manoj Tiwari.

The new names who bagged party tickets for Delhi's Lok Sabha constituencies include Praveen Khandelwal from Chandni Chowk, Bansuri Swaraj from New Delhi and Ramvir Bidhuri from South Delhi.

The party's picks for Lok Sabha seats in Delhi have left everyone, including political observers, baffled and bewildered over the unexpected shake-up.

Bansuri Swaraj, daughter of late BJP leader and former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, is among the youngest faces to get fielded on the BJP ticket.

BJP General Secretary Tawde said that Praveen Khandelwal would be the party's candidate from Chandni Chowk, Manoj Tiwari from North East Delhi, Kamaljeet Sehrawat from West Delhi, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri from South Delhi, and Bansuri Swaraj from New Delhi.

Praveen Khandelwal, a Delhi-based businessman and the founder of Confederation of All India Traders, and Bansuri Swaraj, daughter of late BJP leader and former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, are making their electoral debut.

Manoj Tiwari, singer and actor – serving as a Member of Parliament from North East Delhi, had won the seat two times in the 2014 and the 2019 elections. Ramvir Singh Bidhuri is a sitting MLA from the Badarpur assembly constituency.

The BJP list includes 20 nominees for the 42 seats in West Bengal.

There was no major surprise in the nominees named for the eastern state.

Though speculation has been rife for some time now, the BJP list on Saturday officially confirmed the candidature of Soumendu Adhikari, the younger brother of the leader of opposition in West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, from Kanthi in East Midnapore district, where their father Sisir Adhikari is the sitting Trinamool Congress MP.

Soumendu Adhikari is the former chairman of the Kanthi Municipal Corporation. Another younger brother of Suvendu Adhikari, Dibyendu Adhikari, is the sitting Trinamool MP from the Tamluk Lok Sabha constituency.

There is widespread speculation that Dibyendu Adhikari will contest on a BJP ticket this time from Tamluk, the candidate for which was not announced by the party on Saturday.

A minor surprise in the list was the choice of actor-turned-politician Hiranmoy Chattopadhyay as the party nominee from Ghatal in the West Midnapore district. Chattopadhyay is currently the sitting BJP legislator from the Kharagpur-Sadar constituency in the same district.

Now, Ghatal is all set to witness a clash of two cine stars, as actor-turned-politician Dipak Adhikari a.k.a. Dev is the sitting Trinamool MP from the constituency, who is likely to be renominated.

The BJP list includes 15 nominees for Rajasthan which has 25 seats.

As per the first list, five Lok Sabha members in Rajasthan have been denied tickets this time.

While Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will contest from Kota, the BJP has also given tickets to two leaders who joined the saffron camp from the Congress recently.

Accordingly, Jyoti Mirdha has been given a ticket from Nagaur, while Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya will contest the polls from Dungarpur-Banswara.

While Mirdha had joined the BJP before the Assembly elections held last year-end, Malviya resigned from the post of Congress MLA a few days ago and joined the BJP.

Meanwhile, the BJP has denied tickets to five sitting MPs, including Kankamal Katara, who has been replaced by Malviya in Banswara (SC).

Ram Swaroop Koli has been given a ticket in place of Ranjita Koli from Bharatpur (SC), Rahul Kaswan's ticket has been cancelled from Churu and given to Paralympian Devendra Jhajharia, Lumbaram Chaudhary has been made the candidate from Jalore-Sirohi in place of Devji Patel, while Mannalal Rawat has replaced Arjunlal Meena in the Udaipur (ST) reserve seat.

In 2014, the BJP had won all the 25 seats in Rajasthan.

In 2019, the BJP had left the Nagaur seat for Hanuman Beniwal of the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) as part of an alliance. While Beniwal won, the BJP swept the remaining 24 seats.