Seven sitting MPs dropped in Chhattisgarh; Brijmohan Agrawal from Raipur, Saroj Pandey from Korba
Team News Riveting
New Delhi, March 2
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Saturday announced the first list of candidates ahead of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 today.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will once again contest from Varanasi Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh. The BJP has dropped seven out of nine sitting MPs in Chhattisgarh while decided to field former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from Vidisha Lok Sabha constituency.
In Chhattisgarh, BJP has repeated Vijay Baghel from Durg and Santosh Pandey from Rajnandgaon. The Chhattisgarh minister, Brijmohan Agrawal has been shifted to national politics and fielded from Raipur. The surprise came from Korba where BJP gave ticket to Saroj Pandey from Korba while she comes from Durg district.
BJP National General Secretary Vinod Tawde said the BJP announced candidates on 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.
The Central Election Committee (CEC) of the BJP met Friday to finalise the list. The meeting, which was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, continued till late in the night.
The list also included two former ministers as well as Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, who will fight again from Kota in Rajasthan. Bansuri Swaraj, daughter of the late BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, will make her poll debut from the New Delhi seat.
“The list includes details regarding 34 Central Ministers and MoSs. It also included the name of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and two former CMs as well. 28 of these candidates are women. 47 candidates are under the age of 50. The list also has 27 SC candidates and 18 ST candidates. We are fielding 57 OBC candidates out of these 195,” said Vinod Tawade.
BJP repeated Kiren Rijiju, Tapir Gao from two Arunachal Pradesh seats for Lok Sabha polls. Amit Shah to contest from Gujarat’s Gandhinagar again. Besides Meenakshi Lekhi, John Barla is another Union minister who has been dropped from their seat.
Tawde said, “Under the leadership of PM Modi various public interest decisions have been taken in the last 10 years. This time the Sankalp should be BJP 370 and NDA 400 ‘par'”.
The first list of BJP candidates includes:
