UP minister replaces MM Joshi in BJP list; Maneka Gandhi, Varun swap seats

The BJP has released its tenth list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections.

Veteran Murli Manohar Joshi will not contest the ensuing Parliamentary election, Union minister Maneka Gandhi and her son Varun Gandhi will swap their Lok Sabha constituencies, and new party member and actor-politician Jaya Prada will take on her arch-rival Azam Khan of the Samajwadi Party in Rampur, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced on Tuesday.

The BJP has denied Lok Sabha ticket for former HRD Minister Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, who has been replaced by Uttar Pradesh minister Satyadev Pachauri in Kanpur parliamentary constituency.(Milind Saurkar/HT Photo)

The party also fielded Rita Bahuguna Joshi, a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government, from Allahabad. The BJP’s sitting MP from Allahabad, Shyama Charan Gupta, has joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) and is the candidate from Banda. Joshi is the daughter of former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Congress veteran Hemwati Nadan Bahuguna, and sister of former Uttarakhand chief minister Vijay Bahuguna.

The BJP’s 10th list for the Lok Sabha election names 29 candidates for Uttar Pradesh and 10 for West Bengal. With this, the BJP has announced 61 of the 78 candidates it will field in Uttar Pradesh, the state which will determine its fortunes in the summer’s Lok Sabha election. Two seats have gone to its ally, Apna Dal. In 2014, the BJP won 71 of the 80 seats in the state and its ally Apna Dal, two.

Joshi, 85, was replaced by Satyadev Pachauri, a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government, in the Kanpur constituency. On Monday, Joshi released a statement saying the party’s organisational secretary Ram Lal asked him not to contest election from Kanpur or anywhere else.

Besides Kanpur, Rampur, and Allahabad, the BJP has also replaced its sitting MPs in Baranabanki, Bahraiach, Kushinagar, Etawah and Ballia. Its Bahraiach MP Savitri Bai Phule joined the Congress last month. All told, it has named new candidates - as compared to 2014 - in 19 of the 61 constituencies, although this number also includes those who have simply shifted constituencies (like Varun and Maneka Gandhi).

Joshi is the latest addition to the list of 75-plus BJP leaders, such as LK Advani, Kalraj Mishra, and BC Khanduri, denied tickets on the basis of their age. The BJP invoked an undeclared rule of not fielding anyone who is above the age of 75. The fate of Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan, 75, is yet to be decided.

Maneka Gandhi, who is a seven-term Lok Sabha member, was fielded from Sultanpur, a seat held by her parliamentarian son Varun Gandhi. Parts of the new Sultanpur constituency (post delimitation ahead of the 2009 elections) earlier fell in the Amethi Lok Sabha seat once held by Maneka’s husband, the late Sanjay Gandhi. Varun Gandhi’s debut as Lok Sabha MP was from Pilibhit in 2009.

The BJP also replaced its Rampur candidate Nepal Singh, and fielded actor-politician Jaya Prada against Azam Khan of the Samajwadi Party. The actor won the Rampur seat on a Samajwadi Party ticket in 2004 and 2009, but was expelled from that party after her mentor Amar Singh and Khan had a bitter fight. Jaya contested the 2014 parliamentary election on a Rashtriya Lok Dal ticket from Bijnor, but stood fourth.

Union minister Manoj Sinha has been fielded again from Ghazipur in eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Former Trinamool Congress leader Humayun Kabir, journalist Rantidev Sen Gupta and actor Joy Banerjee are notable among the BJP candidates announced on Tuesday for West Bengal. The party has so far announced candidates for 40 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal.

star campaigners

Party veterans Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi have not made it to BJP’s list of 40 leaders who will be campaigning for the party’s candidates during the first two phases of Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and top leaders such as Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Uma Bharti, Nirmala Sitharaman, and Yogi Adityanath are some of the key leaders who are part of this list of star campaigners.

Here’s the 10th list that BJP released on Tuesday

Uttar Pradesh

Rampur: Jaya Prada

Pilibhit: Varun Gandhi, MP

Dhaurahra: Rekha Verma

Sultanpur: Maneka Gandhi, MP

Farrukhabad: Mukesh Rajpoot

Etawah (SC): Ramashankar Katheriya, MP

Kannauj: Subrat Pathak

Kanpur: Satyadev Pachuri

Akbarpur: Davendra Singh Bhole, MP

Jalaun (SC): Bhanu Pratap Verma, MP

Hamirpur: Pushpendra Singh Chandel, MP

FatehpurSadhvi Niranjan Jyoti,MP

Kaushambi (SC): Vinod Sonkar, MP

Allahabad: Rita Bahuguna Joshi

Barabanki (SC): Upednra Rawat

Faizabad: Lallu Singh, MP

Bahraich (SC): Akshaywar lal Gaud

Kaiserganj: Brijbhushan Sharan Singh, MP

Shrawasti: Daddan Mishra, MP

Gonda: Kirtiwardhan Singh, MP

Domariyaganj: Jagdambika Pal, MP

Basti: Harish Dwivedi, MP

Maharajganj: Pankaj Chaudhary, MP

Kushi Nagar: Vijay Dubey, MP

Bansgaon (SC): Kamlesh Paswan, MP

Salempur: Ravindra Kushwaha, MP

Ballia: Virendra Singh Mast

Ghazipur: Manoj Sinha

Chandauli: Mahendra Nath Pandey

West Bengal

Baharampur: Krishna Juardar Arya

Murshidabad: Humayun Kabir

Ranaghat (SC)Dr Mukut Mani Adhikari

Bangaon (SC): Shantanu Thakur

Diamond harbour: Nilanjan Roy

Howrah: Rantidev Sen Gupta

Uluberia: Joy Banerjee

KanthiDr Debashish Samant

BankuraDr Subhash Sarkar

Bolpur (SC): Ram Prashad Das

(With agency inputs)