LS polls: BJP's 1st list names 51 candidates for UP; Rajnath Singh, Smriti Irani among heavyweights

New Delhi, March 2 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday announced its first list of 195 candidates for Lok Sabha elections 2024. The highest number of nominees -- 51, came from the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP has set an ambitious target of sweeping more than 75 of the total 80 seats. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most high-profile name featuring in the first list of the BJP for Parliamentary elections.

PM Modi will seek re-election to Lok Sabha from the Varanasi constituency in Uttar Pradesh. He has been contesting 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 handed out a humiliating defeat to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from Amethi in the 2019 polls, will again seek re-election to Lok Sabha from this seat.

Other popular faces contesting 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 upheaval in Samajwadi Party's circles in 2019 elections by snatching Azamgarh, the party's bastion, while Ravi Kishen won Gorakhpur LS seat by a landslide margin.

Unveiling its Mission 2024, the party declared candidates from all across the country.

The list, featuring 34 sitting ministers and 2 former Chief Ministers, including 28 female nominees, 47 youth candidates, 57 nominees from OBC, reinforces the party's social engineering strategy to strike the right chord with the voters, across all strata.

The electoral battle-ready party declared the names of candidates, almost over a month ahead of elections, to give the nominees more time to connect and mobilise voters on the ground.

The party, however, sprang a big surprise in Delhi as it dropped all its sitting MPs, except Manoj Tiwari.

The new names who bagged 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 picks for Lok Sabha seats in Delhi have left everyone, including political observers, baffled and bewildered 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.

--IANS

mr/pgh