BJP releases second list of candidates for Lok Sabha polls

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday released its second list of candidates for Lok Sabha elections. Several big names including Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal, Anurag Thakur and former Haryana chief minister ML Khattar featured in the second list of 72 candidates.
The party announced candidates for 10 states including Karnataka, Gujarat and Maharashtra in the second list.
Candidates have been announced for 20 seats each from Karnataka and Maharashtra, 7 seats from Gujarat, 6 seats each from Haryana and Telangana, 5 from Madhya Pradesh, 2 each from Delhi, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh and one each from Tripura and Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu.
Check out the full list:
Maharashtra:
BJP has announced the names of candidates for 20 seats in Maharashtra. Prominent names including Union ministers Nitin Gadkari and Piyush Goyal included in BJP’s second list of candidates. Gadkari will contest from his home state Maharashtra, Nagpur. Gadkari won the seat in both 2014 and 2019 general elections. Piyush Goyal will make his poll debut and contest from Mumbai North. Pankaja Munde will contest from Beed.
Karnataka:
Candidates including former chief minister of Karnataka Basavaraj Bommai and Union minister Pralhad Joshi have been named in the second list. Bommai will fight Lok Sabha elections from Haveri seat and Pralhad Joshi will contest from Dharwad. Former chief minister B S Yediyurappa’s son B Y Raghavendra will contest from Shimoga. Tejasvi Surya, the BJP’s youth wing chief, will seek re-election from Bengaluru South.
Yaduveer Krishnadatta Wadiyar of the erstwhile Mysore royal family has replaced Pratap Simha as the BJP candidate in the Mysore seat.
Gujarat:
In its second list, BJP has announced the names of seven candidates. While Hasmukhbhai Sombhai Patel will contest from Ahmedabad East constituency, Nimuben Banbhania will fight from Bhavnagar. Ranjanben Dhananjay Bhatt, Jashubhai Bhilubhai Rathwa and Mukeshbhai chandrakant DalaVal also featured in BJP’s second list.
The ruling BJP has already released the names of 15 candidates from Gujarat. The first list included Union home minister Amit Shah and health minister Mansukh Mandaviya.
While Amit Shah will contest from Gujarat’s Gandhinagar, Mandaviya will fight from Porbandar.
Telangana
Four leaders from other parties who switched over to the BJP at the eleventh hour were included in the second list of contesting candidates.
D K Aruna (Mahabubnagar) and M Raghunandan Rao (Medak) are the remaining candidates announced by the saffron party for the polls from Telangana.
Naik and Nagesh, who represented Mahabubabad and Adilabad earlier respectively, will be contesting from the same segments while Saidireddy, a former BRS MLA and Srinivas will be fielded from Nalgonda and Pedapalli respectively.
Union minister and state BJP president G Kishan Reddy, BJP national general secretary and MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar, sitting MP Arvind Dharmapuri and senior leader Eatala Rajender were among the candidates from Telangana whose names figured in the first list of Lok Sabha candidates announced by the party on March 2.
Delhi:
The BJP has announced names of two candidates for Delhi. Gautam Gambhir, a sitting MP from the parliament has been dropped from Delhi Lok Sabha seat. Harsh Malhotra will now contest from East Delhi. Yogendra Chandolia will fight from North West Delhi (SC) seat.
Uttarakhand:
The BJP’s second list of candidates for Uttarakhand included its nominees for Haridwar and Garhwal (Pauri), the two remaining parliamentary seats. Former chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat will contest from Haridwar and former Rajya Sabha MP and party’s national media in-charge Anil Baluni from Garhwal (Pauri).
They replace two former chief ministers — Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Tirath Singh Rawat — who represent Haridwar and Garhwal (Pauri) seats respectively in the current Lok Sabha.
Haryana:
Six names have been announced from Haryana.
The BJP has fielded former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar for the Karnal Lok Sabha seat. Manohar Lal Khattar had earlier resigned from the position of Haryana chief minister on Tuesday.
Himachal Pradesh:
Names of two candidates have been announced from Himachal Pradesh for Lok Sabha elections.
In Himachal Pradesh, Union minister Anurag Thakur will contest from the Hamirpur constituency. Suresh Kashyap has been fielded from the Shimla seat.
Dadra and Nagar Haveli:
Kalaben Delkar has been fielded Dadra and Nagar Haveli seat.
Tripura
Maharani Kriti Singh Debbarma will contest from Tripurs East (ST) constituency.
Madhya Pradesh
The BJP had already featured 24 candidates in the first list in Madhya Pradesh. According to the first list, BJP leader Alok Sharma will contest from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, and Pragya Singh Thakur has been dropped. Civil aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia to fight Lok Sabha polls from Guna.
In the second list, BJP has announced names of four more candidates from Madhya Pradesh, where the party emerged victorious in the recent assembly polls.
Dr Bharti Pardhi from Balaghat, Vivek ‘Bunty’ Sahu from Chhindwara, Savitri Thakur from Dhar and Shankar Lalwani from Indore are among those named as candidates in BJP’s second list.
Last week, the BJP had released its first list of 195 candidates for the general elections after days of back-to-back late night meetings.
The first list featured Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia.
The party had announced candidates for 51 seats from Uttar Pradesh, 20 from West Bengal, 24 from Madhya Pradesh, 15 each from Gujarat and Rajasthan, 12 from Kerala, 9 seats from Telangana, 11 from Assam, 11 each from Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, 5 from Delhi, 2 from J&K, 3 from Uttarakhand, 2 from Arunachal Pradesh and 1 each from Goa, Tripura, Andaman & Nicobar and Daman & Diu.