New faces, veterans in BJP’s first list for Lok Sabha polls

The Bharatiya Janata Party has this time named 34 Union ministers and two former chief ministers in the list

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday hit the ground running for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as it announced the first list of 195 candidates from 16 states and two Union territories (UTs) with a balanced mix of veterans and debutants.

The BJP on Saturday announced the first list of 195 candidates for Lok Sabha elections (PTI Photo)

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

Among the 34 Union ministers and two former chief ministers fielded in the list are former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from the Vidisha constituency in the state, civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna and home minister Amit Shah from Gandhinagar in Gujarat.

Madhya Pradesh

In its initial list of 24 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP showcased prominent names such as former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, while 10 sitting MPs, including Bhopal MP Pragya Thakur, were dropped. Chouhan has represented Vidisha five times between 1991 and 2004.

Scindia, meanwhile, has been fielded from his traditional Guna seat. The Union minister has represented this seat four times, and is currently a Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh.

Faggan Singh Kulaste and Ganesh Singh, who lost in 2023 state assembly polls, have been fielded from Mandla and Satna seats, respectively. Alok Sharma, who lost from Bhopal north seat against Atif Aqueel of Congress in 2023 polls, will replace Thakur.

Two new faces, Dr Rajesh Mishra and Ashish Dubey, have been given tickets from Sidhi and Jabalpur, respectively.

Uttar Pradesh

Announcing names for 51 seats in the state, the BJP has banked heavily on sitting MPs in its fist list. The list notable names include Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi, defence minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow, Hema Malini from Mathura, Ajay Mishra Teni from Kheri and Smriti Irani from Amethi, among others.

The new faces in the list include Saket Mishra from Shrawasti, Kripa Shankar Singh from Jaunpur and Ritesh Pandey from Ambedkarnagar.Saket Mishra, who is the sitting MLC, is the son of Nripendra Mishra, Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Temple Construction Committee Chairman chairman and former principal secretary to Prime Minister Modi.

Rajasthan

In Rajasthan, where the party has announced candidates for 15 of the 25 LS seats, Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla has been retained from Kota, Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal from Bikaner, Union junior agriculture minister Harish Chaudhary from Barmer and Union jal shakti minister Gajendra Shekhawat from Jodhpur. Union environment minister Bhupendra Yadav will be contesting for the first time from Alwar.

The BJP has changed candidates on five seats – Churu, Banswara, Jalore, Udaipur and Bharatpur. State BJP chief C P Joshi is party candidate from Chittorgarh. Former chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s son, Dusyant Singh, will contest again from Jhalawar. BJP has fielded Indian Paralympic Devendra Jhaharia from Churu.

West Bengal

Suvendu Adhikari’s brother, Soumendu Adhikari, Bhojpuri star Pawan Singh, BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar and central ministers Subhash Sarkar and Santanu Thakur were among the 20 candidates who were fielded by the BJP. Soumendu, former TMC MLA, joined the BJP following the footsteps of his brother Suvendu in January just ahead of the 2021 assembly polls.

Manoj Tigga, a BJP legislator from Madarihat and the party’s chief whip in the state assembly was fielded from Alipurduar in north Bengal, replacing John Barla, union minister of state for minority affairs. Among the 20 candidates fielded in West Bengal, three are women candidates – Locket Chatterjee, Sreerupa Mitra Chowdhury and Priya Saha.

While Chatterjee is the BJP MP from Hooghly and has been fielded from the same seat, Chowdhury, popularly known as Nirbhoy Didi, is the party’s legislator from English Bazar in Malda. Bhojpur playback singer and actor Pawan Singh’s name was announced from the Asansol constituency. Actor turned politician Shatrughan Sinha is the TMC’s MP from Asansol.

Jharkhand

The BJP names candidates from 11 of the 14 Lok Sabha constituencies. The list includes names of seven sitting MPs including union ministers Arjun Munda from Khunti (ST seat) and Annapurna Devi from Koderma. Two sitting MPs, Sudershan Bhagat from Lohardaga and Jayant Sinha from Hazaribagh have been dropped. Bhagat has been replaced in Lohardaga (ST seat) by Samir Oroan, Rajya Sabha member and incumbent national president of the party’s Janjati Morcha (ST Morcha). In Hazaribag, Jayant Sinha has been replaced by Manish Jaiswal, a two-term sitting legislator from the Hazaribag (Sadar) assembly seat. Sinha, a central minister between 2014-2019, on Saturday morning posted on social media that he has requested the party chief to relieve him from electoral duties.

Others who have been repeated from their constituencies include Nishikant Dubey from Godda, Sunil Soren from Dumka, Sanjay Seth from Ranchi, Bidyut Baran Mahto from Jamshedpur and Vishnu Dayal Ram from Palamu (SC seat). Nishikant, Mahto and VD Ram would be contesting for their third terms.

Kerala

The BJP has named 12 candidates for 20 LS seats in Kerala, having names of senior leader, MT Ramesh from Kozhikode, Anil Antony, son of former defence minister and Congress veteran AK Antony, from Pathanamthitta, popular Malayalam actor Suresh Gopi from the Thrissur constituency and Union Minister of State Rajeev Chandrasekhar from Thiruvananthapuram against Congress sitting MP, Shashi Tharoor. Veteran communist leader Pannian Ravindran is also in the fray from the seat.

BJP’s state chief K Surendran’s name didn’t feature in the list. There were reports that Surendran had confirmed that he would not contest the upcoming polls. The BJP has fielded Dr Abdul Salam, former vice chancellor of Calicut University, from Malappuram. Earlier, the BJP had fielded another Muslim P Abdullakutty for Lok Sabha bypoll from Malappuram in 2021.

Telangana

The BJP announced its senior leader and former state minister Eatala Rajender as its candidate from Malkajgiri parliamentary constituency. Rajender’s name figures among the nine candidates in the first list of candidates from Telangana released by the BJP central election committee in the evening.

At present, the BJP has four sitting MPs, but the party retained only MPs for the second successive term – Bandi Sanjay from Karimnagar, Dharmapuri Arvind from Nizamabad and G Kishan Reddy from Secunderabad. The party kept in abeyance the candidacy of the fourth sitting MP – Soyam Bapu Rao from Adilabad.

Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MP B B Patil, who resigned from the party and joined the BJP only on Friday, has been given the BJP ticket from his Zaheerabad constituency. Two other former BRS MPs – Konda Vishweshwar Reddy and Bura Narsaiah Goud – have been given the tickets for Chevella and Bhongir parliamentary constituencies.

Assam and Tripura

The BJP on Saturday declared candidates for 11 of 14 seats in Assam and one in Tripura. Three seats in Assam are being contested by allies, Asom Gana Parishad ( AGP) and United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL).

Former chief minister and Union minister Sarbananda Sonowal has been named as the candidate from Dibrugarh.

In Tripura, former chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb has been named as the candidate for West Lok Sabha constituency. Deb is currently Rajya Sabha MP.