While the first list of 195 candidates, released on March 2, saw 33 MPs, including Pragya Thakur, Ramesh Bidhuri and Meenakshi Lekhi, replaced by new faces, 32 MPs, including Union minister Darshana Jardosh and former ministers Sadananda Gowda and Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, have been changed in the second list of 72 names, released on March 13.
In Delhi, which sends seven members to the Lok Sabha, the party has fielded all but one new candidate. The only candidate who has been retained is Bhojpuri artist-turned-politician Manoj Tiwari, who will contest again from the North East seat. Cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir, who is the MP from the East Delhi seat, had decided to opt-out. Gambhir has been replaced by Harsh Malhotra, the former mayor of the erstwhile East Delhi Municipal Corporation.
The BJP had released its first list of 195 candidates on March 3. Two candidates have so far dropped out. With 72 names released on Wednesday, the BJP has announced candidates for 265 Lok Sabha seats.
Changes in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat
In the second list announced on Wednesday evening, the party announced 20 candidates each from Karnataka and Maharashtra, seven from Gujarat, six each from Haryana and Telangana, five from Madhya Pradesh, two each from Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand and one each from Tripura and Dadar and Nagar Haveli.
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Out of 20 candidates in the Karnataka list, nine MPs, including former state unit chief Nalin Kateel and two-term Mysore MP Prathap Simha, have been changed. Simha, whose name cropped up in the Parliament security breach row, has been replaced by Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar of the Mysore royal family. US-educated Wadiyar is the adopted son of Pramodadevi Wadiyar, whose late husband, Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar, represented the Mysore Lok Sabha seat four times in the 1980s and 1990s.
In Maharashtra’s list of 20 seats, six sitting MPs, including Gopal Shetty from Mumbai North and Manoj Kotak from Mumbai North East, have been dropped by the party to be replaced by debutants. Shetty has been replaced by Union Minister Piyush Goyal, who will be contesting the Lok Sabha election for the first time. Goyal had made it to the ministry by being elected through the Rajya Sabha until now. And Manoj Kotak has been replaced by Mihir Kotecha in the Mumbai North East seat.
Likewise, for the Beed constituency, two-time MP Pritam Munde has been replaced with her sister Pankaja Munde, a BJP national secretary and two-term former MLA from the state. Both are daughters of former Union Minister and BJP leader late Gopinath Munde. In June last year, Pritam Munde had extended her support to the wrestlers demanding action against Wrestling Federation of India Chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.
In Gujarat, too, the list of seven candidates announced on March 14 has five new names. Among those who have been replaced include Surat MP Darshana Jardosh. She has been replaced by Mukesh Dalal, a former standing committee chairman of the BJP-ruled Surat Municipal Corporation. In the March 2 list too, the BJP had fielded five new faces among the 15 candidates.
Of the six candidates declared in Haryana in the second list, two have been replaced. Ashok Tanwar, who deserted Aam Aadmi Party in January this year, has replaced sitting MP Sunita Duggal from Sirsa.
Similarly of the five Madhya Pradesh candidates declared in the second list, two MPs have been dropped. A fresh face Vivek Sahu, has been fielded against Congress leader Nakul Nath in the Chhindwara constituency, the only seat the BJP had lost in the state in 2019. One MP has been replaced from Telangana’s Adilabad, while the sitting MPs have also been dropped in Tripura, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
Beating anti-incumbency
Fielding fresh faces is aimed at keeping anti-incumbency at bay, according to the sources, who said that the candidates were picked by the party’s Central Election Committee, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after taking the feedback from the ground.
The strategy also assumes significance, considering the BJP’s target of winning 370 seats on its own and 400 for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the upcoming Lok Sabha 2024 polls. The Election Commission is expected to announce the poll schedule one of these days.
In 2019, the Lok Sabha polls were held in seven phases from April 11 to May 19 to elect the members of the 17th Lok Sabha.
The result, declared on May 23, 2019, saw a landslide victory for the BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with 303 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha.
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Published: 14 Mar 2024, 07:52 AM IST