2024 LS polls: BJP replaces 9 sitting MPs in 2nd U.P. list, drops Varun
BJP replaced 9 sitting MPs in U.P.'s second candidate list, including Varun Gandhi. Maneka Gandhi repeated in Sultanpur. Singh's future uncertain.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) replaced nine sitting MPs in its second U.P. list of 13 candidates displaying a significant shift in candidate selection pattern from its March 2 first list where it had retained 47 of the 51 names in it.
The party has so far announced candidates for 63 –not 64—of the state’s 80 seats as Barabanki seat was common in both the lists. In Pilibhit, it replaced Varun Gandhi with U.P. PWD minister Jitin Prasada.
In a post on X, Prasada thanked PM Narendra Modi, party president JP Nadda and chief minister Yogi Adityanath for fielding him for the Lok Sabha contest. “Considering the trust of all of you as my invaluable asset, I am ready to serve Pilibhit with full dedication and hard work,” he said.
In the past, the Samajwadi Party (SP) said it was open to supporting Varun if the BJP did not field him as the buzz over the BJP leader’s political future continued to grow.
SP’s Pilibhit candidate, Bhagwat Saran Gangwar, said on Thursday that he will exit the electoral fray and go back to his home district of Bareilly to help the party’s candidate from there if the high command asked him to. Varun hasn’t commented on his exclusion so far.
The BJP repeated former Union minister and Varun’s mother Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur, the seat she won in the 2019 elections. A nine-time MP, Maneka is the longest-serving sitting lawmaker in the Lok Sabha, having won her first election in 1989 from Pilibhit constituency. She won the Sultanpur seat by a slender margin in 2019 polling 459,196 votes, narrowly pipping the Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) Chandra Bhadra Singh who got 444,670 votes.
While actor Arun Govil, who played Lord Ram in the superhit TV serial Ramayana, has been fielded from Meerut, the suspense continues on the Kaiserganj seat where six-term MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who was accused of sexual harassment by women wrestlers, is the sitting MP.
Party leaders admit that Singh’s political clout as well as his involvement in the Ram temple agitation in the 90s means he is no easy pushover. The BJP has still held up declaration on the seat where SP is yet to name its candidate. Of his six terms as MP for Singh, one has been with the Samajwadi Party.
The party has also not announced its candidate from the Congress bastion of Rae Bareli. This seat is among the 17 seats that Congress would contest in alliance with the SP.
From Bareilly, the BJP replaced former Union minister Santosh Gangwar with another Kurmi leader Chhatrapal Singh Gangwar. Union minister and former army chief General (retd) VK Singh was replaced by lawmaker and former minister Atul Garg in Ghaziabad.
Hours before the BJP declared the list, Singh posted on X: “I have made a difficult but thoughtful decision. I will not contest the 2024 elections. This decision was not easy for me, but I have taken it from the depths of my heart.”
In Badaun, the party dropped its sitting MP Sanghmitra Maurya, the daughter of rebel party leader Swami Prasad Maurya, and fielded Durvijay Singh Shakya, an OBC leader who is BJP’s Braj region chief.
From Kanpur, sitting BJP MP Satyadev Pachauri was replaced by Ramesh Awasthi, a senior journalist-turned-BJP leader. Awasthi set up the National Media Club and annually publishes a much-in-demand media directory.
From Saharanpur, the BJP has again reposed its faith in Raghav Lakhanpal, an educated Brahmin leader. Lakhanpal who won the seat in 2014 Lok Sabha polls but lost in 2019, will take on Imran Masood, the Congress-SP candidate on the seat.
Satish Gautam, the sitting Aligarh MP, has been retained while in Bahraich the BJP has named A Gond, son of its sitting MP Akshayabar Lal Gond as its candidate. From Moradabad, the BJP has named Sarvesh Singh, a five-term awmaker who was defeated in 2019 Lok Sabha polls by Samajwadi Party’s ST Hasan. Anoop Valmiki has been named from Hathras (reserved) seats.