The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday announced its first list of 195 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and 34 union ministers were present at the meeting.
New Delhi: The BHARATIYa Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday announced its first list of 195 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, along with 34 union ministers and two former chief ministers, have made it to the first list.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest again from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. The BJP has finalised candidates for 195 constituencies spread over 16 states and two Union Territories. The names of 51 candidates have been announced in Uttar Pradesh alone, 15 each in Gujarat and Rajasthan, 12 in Kerala, nine in Telangana, 11 each in Assam, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, five in Delhi, three in Uttarakhand, two each in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, and one each in Goa, Tripura, Diu, Daman and Andaman.
In Delhi, sitting candidates Ramesh Bidhouri, Parvesh Verma, Meenakshi Lekhi and Harsh Vardhan have been left out of the four seats. Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, who represents Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, has also been sidelined. Bjp leader Sushma Swaraj’s daughter Bansuri Swaraj has been fielded from the New Delhi seat. This is her first electoral battle. It is currently represented by Union Minister Meenakshi Lekhi.
Speaker Om Birla from Kota
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow and Union Home Minister Amit Shah from Gandhinagar in Gujarat. Union Minister Smriti Irani, who had defeated Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in Amethi in the last elections, has been fielded again from the same seat.
Labour Minister Bhupender Yadav will contest from Alwar while Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat will contest from Jodhpur.
Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will contest from Vidisha while former Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb will contest from Tripura West. Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar will contest from Thiruvananthapuram and V Muralidhar from Attingal. Union ministers Mansukh Mandaviya, Sarbananda Sonowal, Kiren Rijiju, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitendra Singh, Kishan Reddy, Arjun Ram Meghwal and Arjun Munda have made it to the first list.
Among the first list of candidates, 28 are women, 47 are from young leaders, 27 from Scheduled Castes, 18 from Scheduled Castes and 57 from OBC communities.
We will get a more majority
Bjp national general secretary Vinod Tawde announced the first list of the party’s candidates in Delhi. He expressed confidence that under the leadership of Modi, the government will be formed for the third time with a larger majority.
The BJP’s central election committee met for over five hours on Thursday night to finalize the first list. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president JP Nadda and Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah are the members of the committee. The committee is scheduled to meet next week for the next list. Modi has set a target of winning 370 seats on its own and over 400 seats for the NDA.
Remove me from political responsibilities: Gautam Gambhir
Former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir has urged BJP national president JP Nadda to relieve him of his political responsibilities. He said he needs to focus more on cricket and complete some contracts. Gambhir is currently an MP from East Delhi. Bjp sources, however, said Gambhir’s name was not in the list of candidates likely to be announced as candidates in any seat, including East Delhi.
Meanwhile, Hazaribagh MP in Jharkhand and former Union minister Jayant Sinha has also urged the BJP high command not to give him a ticket in the upcoming elections. He announced that he was withdrawing from the direct electoral fray to continue the movement against environmental protection.