Published 18:45 IST, March 26th 2019
BJP announces 39 more Lok Sabha election candidates: Maneka Gandhi, Varun Gandhi and newly inducted Jaya Prada get tickets from Uttar Pradesh, Murli Manohar Joshi doesn't retain Kanpur. Full list here
The BJP on Tuesday announced another list of 39 Lok Sabha election candidates, naming contenders for seats in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
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The BJP on Tuesday announced another list of 39 Lok Sabha election candidates, naming contenders for seats in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Highlights of the list include union minister Maneja Gandhi who will contest from Sultanpur, Varun Gandhi who will contest from Pilibhit as well as Jaya Prada who only joined the party earlier in the day and will contest from the Rampur seat, likely against Samajwadi party leader Azam Khan. The list sees Maneka Gandhi and Varun Gandhi's current Lok Sabha constituencies being switched. Meanwhile, BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi hasn't been given a ticket to his current Kanpur seat.
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The following are the candidates and their respective constituencies, as announced by BJP national general secretary Arun Singh:
The two electorally significant states had also been the focus of the BJP's first and largest-yet list of candidates comprising 184 names. The first list of Uttar Pradesh candidates contained, among others, Prime Minister Narendra Modi who will contest from Varanasi and Smriti Irani who will take on Congress president Rahul Gandhi once again in Amethi. There were over 20 union ministers in the BJP's first list, plus party president Amit Shah who will contest from Gandhinagar in Gujarat.
In West Bengal, meanwhile, the BJP has fielded Chandra Kumar Bose, grand-nephew of Netaji Shubhas Chandra Bose from Kolkata South.
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The BJP's second list had focused on Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha, with party national spokesperson Sambit Patra getting a Lok Sabha election ticket from Odisha's Puri.
The party's third major list was a joint NDA list for Bihar containing 40 names for 40 seats, with the star contender being Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad who was fielded from the Patna Sahib constituency, setting up a potentially mouth-watering contest against rebel-BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha. The other big highlight from the Bihar list was Union Minister Giriraj Singh being given a ticket from the Begusarai seat rather than his current Nawada constituency - a decision that left him 'upset'.
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The fourth list contained 11 candidates, including from the Pathanamthitta seat in Kerala which is regarded as the BJP's best chance to make its first Parliamentary inroads in the state. Following that, 48 candidates were named for Lok Sabha elections in Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka.
18:07 IST, March 26th 2019