Lok Sabha Elections 2024: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday released its second list of 72 candidates for Lok Sabha elections. The saffron party has fielded Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal, former Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar among others.
Some of the prominent candidates include: Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur (Maharashtra), Piyush Goyal from Mumbai North, Harsh Malhotra from East Delhi, Rao Inderjit Singh from Gurgaon, former Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai from Haveri, Pankaja Munde from Beed, Anil Baluni from Garhwal, former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat from Hardwar, and Tejasvi Surya from Bangalore South.
Union Ministers Pralhad Joshi from Dhawad, Anurag Singh Thakur from Hamirpur, and Shobha Karandlaje from Bangalore North are also in the list.
Of the 72 seats for which the party announced its candidates on Wednesday, 20 each were from Maharashtra and Karnataka, seven from Gujarat, six each from Haryana and Telangana, five from Madhya Pradesh, two each from Delhi, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, and one each from Tripura, and Dadar & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu.
The BJP's second list includes 10 women candidates.
In Delhi, the BJP has fielded two new candidates -- Harsh Malhotra from East Delhi and Yogendra Chandolia from North West Delhi -- dropping the party's sitting MPs Gautam Gambhir and Hans Raj Hans.
With this, the BJP has named candidates for all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, dropping six incumbents.
Who all have been named in second list
Tejasvi Surya, the BJP youth wing president, will contest again from Bangalore South while Union minister Shobha Karandlaje has been shifted from her Udupi Chikmagalur seat to Bangalore North, represented by former Union minister and Karnataka chief minister Gowda in the outgoing Lok Sabha.
Yaduveer Krishnadatta Wadiyar of the erstwhile Mysore royal family replaces Pratap Simha, who was recently in a row for recommending passes to two persons who breached Parliament's security, as the BJP candidate in the Mysore seat.
Former Karnataka BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel has been dropped from Dakshina Kannada in favour of Brijesh Chowta, who has served in the Army.
In Karnataka, Union minister Pralhad Joshi will fight from Dharwad while former chief minister BS Yediyurappa's son BY Raghwendra will contest from Shimoga again.
Union minister Darshana Jardosh has been dropped from her Surat seat, with the BJP repeating only two of the seven incumbent MPs from Gujarat in the second list.
Several Telangana leaders who quit other parties, mainly BRS, figure in the BJP's second list.
In the Tripura East seat, the BJP fielded Maharani Kriti Singh Debbarma, sister of Pradyot Debbarma, the Tipra Motha chief and a scion of the erstwhile Tripura royal family.
Union minister Bharati Pravin Pawar will join the fray from Maharashtra's Dindori Lok Sabha seat again.
Ashok Tanwar, who recently joined the BJP after having a stint with several other parties including the Congress, TMC and the Aam Aadmi Party, replaces sitting MP Sunita Duggal in Sirsa in Haryana, while Union ministers Rao Inderjit Singh and Krishan Pal Gurjar will seek re-election from Gurgaon and Faridabad respectively.
In the first list, the ruling party had announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi would contest from Varanasi for a third time.
It had also named 34 Union ministers, including heavyweights like Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh from their current Gandhinagar and Lucknow seats respectively, in the first list.
Two former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Biplab Kumar Deb -- also figured in the first list which did not have many surprise omissions.
The party is yet to announce any Lok Sabha nominees from two major states of North India – Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The party had released its first list of 195 candidates across 16 states and Union Territories on March 2.
