LS polls: BJP releases 10th list of candidates

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday unveiled its 10th candidate list for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, marking the third list for Uttar Pradesh. The latest candidate list includes nine names, with one each in Chandigarh and West Bengal, and seven in Uttar Pradesh.

Notably, the BJP has chosen to replace incumbent MP Kirron Kher with Sanjay Tandon, the BJP state president from Chandigarh. Kher, who has held the position since 2014, secured victories in the last two elections. In 2014, she clinched the Chandigarh seat with 191,362 votes, triumphing over the then-incumbent MP, Congress leader Pawan Bansal, who garnered 121,720 votes. Similarly, in 2019, she secured her second term with 231,188 votes, surpassing Bansal’s 184,218 votes.

The BJP has now announced 70 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, among the highest allocations of 80 seats. It’s noteworthy that the party has replaced 18 sitting candidates.

Paras Nath Rai, the owner of several colleges in eastern Uttar Pradesh, has been nominated as the BJP’s candidate for the Ghazipur Lok Sabha seat. This announcement ended speculation regarding the potential resignation of the current lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Manoj Sinha, who had won the seat thrice in the past but lost in 2019.

Rai, who previously collaborated closely with Sinha, will face Samajwadi Party’s Afzal Ansari, brother of the late gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari, in the upcoming elections. In 2019, Ansari contested from Ghazipur on a Samajwadi Party (SP)- Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) alliance ticket and emerged victorious over Sinha.

Except for two seats, Kaushambi and Macchlishahr, the BJP has changed candidates on the remaining five seats. Neeraj Shekhar, a current Rajya Sabha member and the son of former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, is set to contest from the Ballia Lok Sabha seat. Neeraj Tripathi, son of the late veteran BJP leader and former Governor Kesari Nath Tripathi, replaces Rita Bahuguna Joshi as the candidate from Allahabad. Additionally, Parveen Patel has been nominated to replace sitting MP Keshri Devi Patel in Phulpur.

BP Saroj, the sitting MP from Machhlishahr, a Scheduled Caste (SC) reserved constituency, has been renominated by the BJP. In Mainpuri, a stronghold of the Opposition SP, Jaiveer Singh, a UP Minister, has been named the BJP candidate to contest against Dimple Yadav of the SP. In Kaushambi, also a Scheduled Caste (SC) reserved constituency, Vinod Sonkar, the incumbent MP, is seeking re-election for a third term.

Meanwhile, the experts believe that this list has been an effort by BJP to reach out to the upper castes and non-Yadav OBCs, focusing on the Purvanchal and part of central UP- as all five nominees from General seats belong to these social groups, which are considered the core voter base of the party. However, the saffron party is yet to declare the candidate for Raebareli, as it is the Gandhi turf.

In another significant development, the Bharatiya Janata Party has announced SS Ahluwalia as its candidate from Asansol in West Bengal. Ahluwalia will face off against Trinamool Congress’s heavyweight candidate and prominent figure, Shatrughan Sinha, in this industrial hub situated within the state’s coal belt. Previously, the BJP had replaced Ahluwalia, who was the party’s sitting MP from the Burdwan-Durgapur seat, with former state president Dilip Ghosh as the candidate for that constituency. The party is yet to declare a candidate for Diamond Harbour to take on TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee.

The 2024 general election commencing on April 19, 2024, will be held in seven phases till June, 1.