New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to contest from the Varanasi constituency in Uttar Pradesh while Home Minister Amit Shah from Gandhinagar in Gujarat.
On Saturday the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has unveiled its initial list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, marking a significant departure with many sitting MPs being replaced by fresh faces. The party, in its bid to secure a commanding 400 seats, has also fielded several MLAs for the parliamentary polls.
The announcement was made by National General Secretary Vinod Tawde at the party’s headquarters in Delhi, where he revealed the names of 195 Lok Sabha candidates. The list includes candidates from various states such as Andaman and Nicobar (1 candidate), Arunachal Pradesh (2), Assam (11), Chhattisgarh (11), Dadra-Nagar Haveli (1), Delhi (5), Goa (1), Gujarat (15), Jammu and Kashmir (2), Jharkhand (11), Kerala (12), Madhya Pradesh (24), Rajasthan (15), Telangana (9), Tripura (1), Uttarakhand (3), Uttar Pradesh (51), and West Bengal (20).
In a move towards diversity, the party has allotted tickets to 28 women candidates and 47 individuals below 50 years of age. Additionally, 47 youth, 27 SC, 18 ST, and 57 OBC candidates have been given the opportunity to represent the BJP in the upcoming elections.
Among the key candidates announced, Vishnu Pana Re will contest from Andaman and Nicobar, Kiren Rijiju from Arunachal Pradesh West, Tapir Gao from Arunachal Pradesh East, and Parimal Shukla Vaid from Silchar.
In Delhi, Praveen Khandelwal will contest from Chandni Chowk, Manoj Tiwari from North East Delhi, Bansuri Swaraj from New Delhi, Kamaljeet Sehrawat from West Delhi, and Ramveer Singh Bidhuri from South Delhi.
Other notable candidates include Saroj Pandey from Korba (Chhattisgarh), Vijay Baghel from Durg (Chhattisgarh), C Krishnakumar from Palakkad (Kerala), Sarbananda Sonowal from Dibrugarh (Assam), and Pawan Singh, the famous Bhojpuri singer, from Asansol.
In South India, the party has fielded candidates for 9 seats in Telangana, with Bandi Sanjay Kumar contesting from Karimnagar and G Kishan Reddy from Secunderabad. In Kerala, candidates include Rajiv Chandrasekhar from Thiruvananthapuram, V Muraleedharan from Attingal, Anil K Antony from Pathanamthitta, Shobha Surendran from Alappuzha, and Suresh Gopi from Thrissur. Dr. Abdul Salam has been named as the candidate from Malappuram, the only BJP candidate in the list from Kerala.
In Jharkhand, candidates announced include former CM Arjun Munda from Khunti (ST), Nishikant Dubey from Godda, Sanjay Seth from Ranchi, Manish Jaiswal from Hazaribagh, Sameer Oraon from Lohardaga, Geeta Koda from Chaibasa, Vidyut Charan Mahato from Jamshedpur, Sunil Soren from Dumka, Tala Marandi from Rajmahal, Anapurna Devi from Koderma, and BD Ram from Palamu.
In Jammu and Kashmir, Dr. Jitendra Singh will contest from Udhampur, and Jugal Kishore Sharma from Jammu.
