BJP candidate list Lok Sabha 2024 LIVE: PM Modi wishes 195 candidates ‘very best’, says candidates for remaining seat…
The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) released the first list of 195 candidates for the upcming Lok Sabha elections here in the national capital on March 2.
The first list of 195 candidates features high-profile names such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi who will again contest from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and Union Home Minister Amit Shah who will contest from Gandhinagar in Gujarat.
The list, which has names of 34 Union Ministers and Ministers of State, comes days before the dates of Lok Sabha polls 2024 – to be held in April-May – are announced by the Election Commission of India (ECI). Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will contest from Lucknow while Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani from Amethi.
Of the 195 constituencies, 51 are from Uttar Pradesh, 20 from West Bengal and five from Delhi. The list, that includes includes names of 28 women, 47 leaders under the age of 50 and 57 members from the OBC community, was read out by BJP National General Secretary, Vinod Tawde in presence of BJP National Vice President Jay Panda.
Among other Union Ministers, Jyotiraditya Scindia has been fielded from Guna, Arjun Meghwal will contest from Bikaner, Bhupendra Yadav from Alwar and Rajeev Chandrashekhar from Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram. Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla will contest from Kota while former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Chouhan from Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh,
In Jammu and Kashmir, the party has repeated Union Minister Jitendra Singh and present member of parliament Jugal Kishore from Udhampur and Jammu parliamentary seats, respectively. Actor-turned politician Hema Malini will again contest from her seat Mathura in Uttar Pradesh.
The BJP has kept 370+ seats target for the party in the upcoming polls and 400+ for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). .
In 2019, the Lok Sabha polls were held in seven phases from April 11 to May 19 to elect the members of the 17th Lok Sabha. The result, declared on May 23, saw a landslide victory for the BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi with 303 seats in the 543-member House.
The speculation over the first list of BJP candidates started doing rounds after a marathon meeting of BJP’s Central Election Committee (CEC) was held on February 29. Two sitting MPs Gautam Gambhir from East Delhi and Jayant Sinha from Hazaribagh have already opted out of Lok Sabha polls earlier in the day.
The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP’s national President JP Nadda, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Organisation General Secretary BL Santosh, Chief Ministers, State Presidents, n-charges, co-in charges, and election in-charges of various states.
Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Assam, Uttarakhand, and Goa were also present.