Industrialist and former Congress member of parliament (MP) Naveen Jindal, former judge of Calcutta High Court Abhijit Gangopadhyay and actor Kangana Ranaut, are in the list.
Ranaut will contest her first election from Mandi Himachal Pradesh, her home state, Jindal from Kurukshetra in Haryana and Abhijit Gangopadhyay from Tamluk seat in West Bengal.
The seven-phase Lok Sabha Polls 2024 begin on April 19. The results will be announced on June 4.
Varun Gandhi dropped
Apart from Naveen Jindal, another new joinee in the list is Sita Soren. Soren, former JMM MLA and sister-in-law of former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, has been fielded from Dumka parliamentary constituency.
Like in the previous lists, the saffron party has dropped many sitting members of parliaments in the fifth list. Prominent among those include Pilibhit MP Varun Gandhi.
Follow all LIVE UPDATES on BJP 5th candidate list 2024 Here
Varun, who represented the high-profile seat two times, has been replaced by former Congress leader Jitin Prasada to contest from Pilibhit seat in Uttar Pradesh in 2024 Lok Sabha Polls. Varun’s mother Maneka Gandhi has been retained from Sultanpur, though.
Pilibhit, along with seven other seats in Uttar Pradesh, will go to the polls on April 19 in the first phase of the Lok Sabha 2024 elections, for which the filing of nominations started on March 20.
For quite some time now, speculation has been rife that Varun may not be fielded by the BJP in 2024 because he attacked some of his party’s policies over the past few years. Some reports suggested that he would contest the elections either as an independent or as a Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate.
Also Read: Will he or won’t he? Speculation mounts over Varun Gandhi’s BJP ticket from Pilibhit Lok Sabha seat
The SP has fielded a candidate from Pilibhit, though.
Union Minister Ashwini Choubey
The fifth list of candidates had 17 names from Bihar including two former Union Ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad from Patna Sahib and Rajiv Pratap Rudy from Saran. The party has, however, dropped Union Minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey from Buxar seat.
Choubey, currently serving Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Environment, Forest and Climate Change in Prime Minister Narendra Modi cabinet, has been replaced by Mithlesh Tiwari. Similarly, sitting MP Ajay Nishad has been replaced by Raj Bhushan Nishad from Muzaffarpur seat in Bihar.
Similarly, in Sasaram seat, Shivesh Ram has replaced sitting Chhedi Paswan while in Muzaffarpur BJP has fielded Raj Bhushan Nishad (Chaudhary) replacing sitting MP Ajay Nishad.
Three-term UP MP
The fifth list had 13 names from UP. Among the new faces include Arun Govil, the Ramayana fame actor. Govil will contest from Meerut Lok Sabha seat which has been represented by Rajendra Agrawal, since 2009.
Four Odisha MPs dropped
In Odisha, the BJP has announced names of 18 candidates of the 21 Lok Sabha seats. At least four sitting MPs have been dropped while 5 new faces have been fielded.
The sitting MPs from Odisha who have been dropped include Union Minister Bisweshwar Tudu from Mayurbhaj, Suresh Pujari from Bargarh, Nitish Gang Deb from Sambalpur and Basant Panda from Kalahandi.
Also Read : BJP’s 5th candidate list: Kangana Ranaut, Maneka Gandhi, Ramayan fame Arun Govil fielded for Lok Sabha polls
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan replaced Nitish Gang Deb in Sambalpur while Rairangpur MLA Naba Charan Majhi has replaced Bisweshwar Tudu in Mayurbhaj seat. Pujari has been replaced by Pradeep Purohit from Bargarh seat while Malvika Keshari Deo has replaced Basant Kumar Panda from Kalahandi Lok Sabha seat.
VK Singh opts out
Union Minister and MP from Ghaziabad Gen (retd) V K Singh had been replaced by Atul Garg, the local MLA who is a minister in Akhilesh Yadav-led Uttar Pradesh government. Singh, who won the Ghaziabad seat twice since 2014 and 2019, had earlier in the day opted out of Lok Sabha Elections 2024.
Among others, the BJP has also replaced veteran parliamentarian SS Ahulwalia from Bardhaman-Durgapur. The party has fielded its former state unit seat Dilip Ghosh from this seat in West Bengal. Ghosh currently represents Medinipur seat. The party has fielded fashion designer-turned politician Agnimitra Paul from Medinipur. Paul is currently a member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly.
(With inputs from agencies)
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Published: 24 Mar 2024, 10:23 PM IST