Lok Sabha polls: In BJP’s first list of 195, Modi to contest again from Varanasi, Amit Shah from Gandhinagar

Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has been chosen to contest from Vidisha constituency in the state; and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla from Kota. Saket Misra, an MLC in Uttar Pradesh, and son of Nripendra Misra, former Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, has been fielded from the Shravasti Lok Sabha constituency.

In the first list of 195, the BJP included 28 women, 47 youth under 50 years of age, 27 Scheduled Castes, 18 Scheduled Tribes and 57 OBCs

The party announced 51 candidates in Uttar Pradesh, 24 in Madhya Pradesh, 15 each in Gujarat and Rajasthan, 20 for West Bengal, 12 in Kerala, 11 each in Assam, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, nine in Telangana, five in Delhi, two in Jammu and Kashmir, two in Arunachal Pradesh, one each in Goa, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Daman and Diu.

BJP leaders (L-R) Sanjay Mayukh, Baijayant Jay Panda, Vinod Tawde and Anil Baluni during the announcement of first list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections at a press conference, in New Delhi, Saturday (PTI)

With Prime Minister Modi urging senior ministers from Rajya Sabha to contest Lok Sabha elections, the party fielded Union ministers Bhupender Yadav from Alwar in Rajasthan, Mansukh Mandaviya from Porbandar and Parshottam Rupala from Rajkot (Gujarat), Rajeev Chandrasekhar from Thiruvananthapuram, and V Muraleedharan from Attingal constituency. Another Rajya Sabha member and national vice president of the BJP Saroj Pande will contest from the Korba Lok Sabha constituency in Chhattisgarh. Union Minister Rameshwar Teli is replaced by Cabinet Minister and former Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal in Dibrugarh.

Union Ministers who are being fielded from their sitting seats are Gajendra Shekhawat in Jodhpur, Smriti Irani in Amethi, S P Singh Baghel in Agra, Sanjeev Balyan in Muzaffarnagar, Ajay Mishra Teni in Kheri, Arjun Ram Meghwal in Bikaner, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti in Fatehpur, Subhash Sarkar in Bankura and Nishit Pramanik in Cooch Behar.

Ritesh Pande who was recently inducted into the party from BSP is fielded from Ambedkar Nagar itself. BJP’s Gujarat president C R Paatil will contest again from Navsari constituency. Geeta Koda, who joined the BJP from the Congress last week, has been fielded from Jharkhand’s Singhbhum, the constituency she represents now.

Despite speculation the party could change its candidature in Mathura, the BJP fielded sitting MP and actress-politician Hema Malini again from the constituency. In Telangana, where the party hopes to win a significant number of seats, especially after it doubled its vote share in the Assembly elections, the BJP fielded Union Minister G Kishan Reddy in Secunderabad, Etala Rajendran, considered to be its main strategist in the state, in Malkajgiri constituency, and repeated Arvind Dharmapuri in Nizamabad and Bandi Sanjay Kumar in Karimnagar.

Dushyant Singh, son of former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje, is fielded for the fourth time from Jhalawar-Baran constituency.

The list of candidates was finalised by the Central Election Committee (CEC) which met Thursday with Prime Minister Modi heading the marathon meeting.

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Announcing the first list, BJP general secretary Vinod Tawde said the party has been taking efforts to increase the spread of not just the BJP, but the NDA also. “Not just the BJP, even the people in this country want ‘fir ek baar Modi sarkar’,” he said.

The party had used the ‘early-start’ strategy in the recent Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana and the party leaders have said it proved to be successful. Tawde said the CEC, which met on February 29, had cleared the candidates for 16 states and UT

The BJP is heading towards the elections, expected to be announced soon, with an unprecedented confidence after Modi has set a target of 370 seats for the party on its own and 400 plus for its NDA coalition. The party has already stitched fresh alliances with smaller parties as well as regional outfits like Janata Dal Secular in Karnataka, got back its former partner Janata Dal-United in Bihar and has been in talks with parties like TDP- JanaSena in Telangana.

Sources also said with a high target set for the Lok Sabha elections, the party had to keep aside some of its plans to prune the candidates’ list and “winnability”has become the priority.

The CEC is expected to meet again in the coming week to clear more names, sources said. In 2019, the party had finalised 184 candidates in the first list. With the party winning every seat in a number of states in the Hindi heartlands as well as its traditional bastions, the BJP is expected to focus on the southern states to win more seats and vote share. The BJP had scored 100 per cent in Rajasthan, Haryana, Gujarat and lost just one in Madhya Pradesh, two in Chhattisgarh and its alliance had lost just one in Bihar in the 2019 elections.

Hours before the party released its first list, two of its sitting MPs- Jayant Sinha and Gautam Gambhir – have made a request to BJP President JP Nadda expressing their desire to be relieved of his electoral duties. While Sinha claimed he wanted to focus on his efforts on combating global climate change in Bharat and around the world, Gambhir expressed his desire to focus on upcoming cricket commitments. Party sources said both these MPs were not expected to be repeated in their respective constituencies.

Here’s the BJP’s full list of candidates: