Lok Sabha Elections 2024: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday released its fifth list of 111 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections 2024.
The saffron party has fielded Nityanand Rai from Ujiarpur, Giriraj Singh from Begusarai, Ravi Shankar Prasad from Patna Sahib, Kangana Ranaut from Mandi, Naveen Jindal from Kurukshetra, Sita Soren from Dumka, Jagadish Shettar from Belgaum, K Sudhakaran from Chikkaballapur, Dharmendra Pradhan from Sambalpur, Pratap Sarangi from Balasore, Sambit Patra from Puri, Aparijita Sarangi from Bhubaneswar and Arun Govil from Meerut, among other candidates.
Among other candidates, the party has announced Rajesh Chudasama from Junagadh, Hari Patel from Mehsana, Shabhna Ben Bariya from Sabarkantha, Dr Hemang Jishi from Vadodara, Bharat bhai Sutaria from Amreli, Chandubhai Shiohora from Surendranagar.
Candidates of Vadodara and Sabarkantha have been changed and announced again. The names were taken back earlier today by the candidates whose names were announced by the party earlier.
Former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who quit the bench recently and joined the BJP, has been fielded from West Bengal's Tamluk seat.
Other prominent candidates include Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan from Odisha's Sambalpur, former IAS officer Aparajita Sarangi from Bhubaneswar, party spokesman Sambit Patra from Puri, Andhra Pradesh unit chief D Purandeswari from Rajahmundry, and former Andhra Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy, who quit the Congress, from Rajampet.
In Bihar, the party has fielded Union Ministers RK Singh from Arrah, Nityanand Rai from Ujiarpur, and Giriraj Singh from Begusarai. Former Union Ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad from Patna Sahib, Rajiv Pratap Rudy from Saran, Radha Mohan Singh from Purvi Champaran, and Ram Kripal Yadav from Pataliputra also figure in the list.
JMM's Sita Soren, who recently joined the party, has been fielded from Dumka (ST).
Former Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar, who recently returned to the party from the Congress, has been fielded from Belgaum and former state minister K Sudhakar from Chikballapur. In Kerala, state chief K Surendran has been fielded from Wayanad, where Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is contesting.
Sitting MP Varun Gandhi has been denied a ticket from UP's Pilibhit and UP minister Jitin Prasad fielded in his place. Longtime Bareilly MP and former Union Minister Santosh Gangwar has also been dropped and Chhatrapal Singh Gangwar was named the candidate.
The BJP has fielded Atul Garg from Ghaziabad, as sitting MP and Union Minister, Gen VK Singh (retd) expressed his unwillingness to contest the polls.
BJP fields Kerala BJP chief K Surendra against Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad
Kerala BJP president K Surendra will contest from Wayanad, the seat from where incumbent MP and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi is again in the fray.
The BJP has fielded Rekha Patra, who party leaders said is one of the Sadeshkhali victims, from West Bengal's Basirhat constituency in a bid to corner the state's ruling Trinamool Congress.
BJP names all 17 candidates for Bihar, 13 in Uttar Pradesh
The BJP named candidates for all 17 seats it is contesting in Bihar, renominating Union minister Giriraj Singh from Begusarai and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad from Patna Sahib.
Union ministers RK Singh and Nityanand Rai have also been fielded from their current seats, while in Uttar Pradesh the ruling party named 13 more candidates.
Jitin Prasada replaces Varun Gandhi in Pilibhit
While it has denied the ticket from Pilibhit to Varun Gandhi, a three-term Lok Sabha MP who has often aired views deemed critical of his party's governments at the Centre and in the state, it has renominated his mother Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur.
Jitin Prasada, a minister in the state government, is the party's choice from Pilibhit while Atul Garg replaces two-term MP V K Singh in Ghaziabad. Hours before the party released the list, Singh said in a post on X that he is opting out of the polls.
Three leaders who joined the BJP on Sunday figured in the list -- Naveen Jindal from Kurukshetra, Haryana government minister Ranjit Chautala from Hisar (both in Haryana), and Varaprasad Rao from Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh.
Dropped sitting MPs
The party has axed former Union minister Anantkumar Hegde, a six-term Lok Sabha member from Uttara Kannada, this time. A hardline Hindutva leader, he has often courted controversies with his remarks including the recent row when he said a big mandate for the BJP is necessary so that it could amend the Constitution.
Apart from Hegde, the BJP has denied tickets to nearly 37 incumbent MPs in the latest list, including nine in Uttar Pradesh, five in Gujarat, four in Odisha and three each in Bihar, Karnataka and Jharkhand.
The count of dropped MPs does not include those who won recent assembly elections like Diya Kumari and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore in Rajasthan, or someone like Nayab Singh Saini who has taken over as Haryana chief minister or Hisar MP Brijendra Singh, who has already quit the party.
BJP announces candidates on 398 seats so far
With this list of 111 candidates, the ruling party has named 398 nominees, excluding the four who withdrew after their names created controversy, for the elections to the 543-member Lok Sabha.
Kangana Ranaut to contest from Himachal's Mandi
Ranaut, a vocal supporter of the BJP, will contest from Mandi in her home state of Himachal Pradesh, while veteran actor Arun Govil, famed for his role of Lord Ram in the popular TV serial "Ramayan", has been preferred to seasoned parliamentarian Rajendra Agrawal in Meerut by the ruling party.
Sita Soren, the sister-in-law of former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, is the BJP's candidate from Dumka. She had quit the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha a few days ago.
Jagadish Shettar, who returned to BJP from Congress, fielded from Belgaum
Former Karnataka chief minister Jagadish Shettar, who snapped his long ties with the BJP to join the Congress last year before returning to its fold months later, will contest from Belgaum.
The party has named 19 more candidates from West Bengal, including former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay from Tamluk.
It has shifted Dilip Ghosh, the MP from Medinipur, to Bardhaman–Durgapur, dropping the incumbent S S Ahluwalia.
It named seven candidates from Rajasthan, four each from Haryana, Karnataka and Kerala, 18 from Odisha, and three each from Maharashtra and Jharkhand among other states.
Its Andhra Pradesh president D Purandeswari will contest from Rajahmundry and former chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy from Rajampet as the party named its picks for all the six Lok Sabha seats in the state it is contesting in alliance with the TDP and the Jana Sena.
BJP vice president Baijayant Panda will contest from Kendrapara, a constituency he has represented in Lok Sabha as a BJD member twice.
In its fifth list, the party has announced candidates from Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim, Telangana, UP, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, among other states.
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