BJP Fields PM Modi, Rajnath Singh, Smriti Irani In First List Of 51 Candidates For UP

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has unveiled its first list of 195 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, with the maximum number of nominees – 51, coming from the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP has set a lofty goal of winning more than 75 of the total 80 seats. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most prominent name in the first list of the BJP for Parliamentary elections. PM Modi will run for re-election to Lok Sabha from the Varanasi constituency in Uttar Pradesh. He has been fighting from there since 2014.

Some other big names are Union Minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow, and his Cabinet colleague, Smriti Irani from Amethi. Smriti Irani, who delivered a crushing defeat to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from Amethi in the 2019 polls, will again run for re-election to Lok Sabha from this seat.

Other popular faces running for Lok Sabha polls on BJP ticket from Uttar Pradesh include former minister Mahesh Sharma (Gautam Budh Nagar), Satyapal Singh (Agra), actress-turned-politician Hema Malini (Mathura), Ravi Kishen (Gorakhpur), Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua (Azamgarh), Sanjeev Balyan (Muzaffarnagar), Ajay Mishra Teni (Lakhimpur Kheri), Mahendra Nath Pandey (Chandauli), Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur), Sakshi Maharaj (Unnao), among others.

Nirahua, a popular Bhojpuri actor-singer, created a stir in Samajwadi Party’s circles in 2019 elections by wresting Azamgarh, the party’s stronghold, while Ravi Kishen won Gorakhpur LS seat by a huge margin. Revealing its Mission 2024, the party announced candidates from all over the country.

The list, featuring 34 sitting ministers and 2 former Chief Ministers, including 28 female nominees, 47 youth candidates, 57 nominees from OBC, reflects the party’s social engineering strategy to appeal to the voters, across all segments.

The party, ready for the electoral battle, announced the names of candidates, well over a month before the elections, to give the nominees more time to reach out and mobilise voters on the ground.

The party, however, surprised everyone in Delhi as it dropped all its sitting MPs, except Manoj Tiwari.

The new names who got party tickets for Delhi’s Lok Sabha constituencies include Praveen Khandelwal from Chandni Chowk, Bansuri Swaraj from New Delhi and Ramvir Bidhuri from South Delhi.

The party’s choices for Lok Sabha seats in Delhi have left everyone, including political observers, puzzled and perplexed over the unexpected shake-up.

Bansuri Swaraj, daughter of late BJP leader and former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, is among the youngest faces to get fielded on the BJP ticket.

Some other possible headlines are:

BJP nominates PM Modi from Varanasi, drops Pragya Singh Thakur from Bhopal in first list of candidates
BJP announces first list of candidates, PM Modi to fight from Varanasi, Smriti Irani from Amethi
BJP unveils first list of 195 candidates, PM Modi, Rajnath Singh, Smriti Irani among big names