BJP announces 194 candidates for LS polls; PM Modi to contest from Varanasi
The BJP’s first list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections has been drawn from 16 states and it include 34 union ministers and ministers of state
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday came out with the first list of 195 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls; nominating Prime Minister Narendra Modi as its candidate for the third time from Varanasi.
Union home minister Amit Shah will contest from Gandhinagar in Gujarat, a seat that he already represents.
The first list of candidates has been drawn from 16 states in line with the party’s social engineering formula that gives representation to various castes that are socially and economically marginalised. Of the 195, 28 are women, a constituency that is crucial to the BJP’s electoral success; 27 are from the Scheduled Caste, 18 from Scheduled Tribes and 57 OBCs.
Announcing the details of the list, BJP national general secretary Vinod Tawde said that
34 union ministers and ministers of state are among the candidates; these include Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna in Madhya Pradesh; Rajeev Chandrasekhar from
Thiruvananthapuram. Two former chief ministers, Sarbanand Sonowal and Shivaraj Singh Chauhan from Vidisha.
“There are 28 women and 47 are under 50 years...” he said.
The names were announced following a marathon meeting of the party’s central election committee on Thursday, which includes PM Modi, party president JP Nadda, Shah, Rajnath Singh, Bhupendra Yadav, Yogi Adityanath, BL Santhosh and other senior leaders.
The party has set a target of winning 370 of the 543 seats; and bagging 400 seats with the allies.
In 2019, the first list that came days after the Election Commission announced the schedule of the seven-phase election had 184 names.
This time the party has opted to announce the list well before the elections are declared, in a bid to give candidates more time for outreach. The experiment to announce candidates before the election date is announced, was carried out during elections in a clutch of states including Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Telangana.
Earlier in the day, two sitting MPs, Jayant Sinha and Gautam Gambhir tweeted that they have asked the party president to excuse them from contesting polls.
“I have requested Hon’ble Party President JP Nadda ji to relieve me of my political duties so that I can focus on my upcoming cricket commitments. I sincerely thank Hon’ble PM Narendra Modi for giving me the opportunity to serve the people. Jai Hind,” Gambhir wrote.
Sinha also wrote to Nadda to relieve him from direct electoral duties, indicating that he does not wish to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha election as he wants to be relieved so that he can focus on combating global climate change.
