BJP's Lok Sabha polls first list: PM Narendra Modi to contest from Varanasi, Amit Shah from Gandhinagar

There was a Queen in the list. Queen Oja will be contesting from Assam's Guwahati seat. And a Maharaj at least in name too - Sakshi Maharaj. The full list ran into 184 candidates...
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (File Photo | PTI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (File Photo | PTI)

NEW DELHI: Holi day brought in a dash of colour and excitement in the BJP camp on Thursday as the party released its first list of 184 candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, but the talking point was the dropping of veteran leader L K Advani from Gandhinagar, with the seat going to party president Amit Shah.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest from Varanasi, the seat he represents in Parliament. Almost all party heavyweights will fight from the same seats they did in 2014, including Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari from Lucknow and Nagpur, respectively.
Smriti Irani will take on Congress president Rahul Gandhi from Amethi, where she lost to him in 2014 though she put up a spirited fight.

Of the 28 names on the list from Uttar Pradesh, six sitting MPs were dropped, including Union minister Krishna Raj from Shahjahanpur and Scheduled Caste Commission head and Agra MP Ram Shankar Katheria. However, actor Hema Malini retained her Mathura ticket.

The party also dropped former Union minister B C Khanduri from Garhwal and former Uttarakhand chief minister Bhagat Singh Koshyari from Nainital, replacing them with Tirath Singh Rawat and Ajay Bhatt, respectively.

Union ministers Jitendra Singh and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore will contest from Udhampur and Jaipur Rural, respectively. Baijayant Jay Panda has been fielded from Kendrapara in Odisha.
In Bengal, the party struck a balance between influential BJP leaders and defectors from the Trinamool Congress and CPM in its first list of 28 candidates. While state BJP president Dilip Ghosh will contest from Medinipur, Union minister Babul Supriyo will be pitted against actor Moon Moon Sen (Trinamool) in Asansol.

In Karnataka, the party nominated 14 of its MPs from the seat they currently represent. Union ministers D V Sadanada Gowda will seek re-election from Bangalore North and Anantkumar Hegde from Uttara Kannada. 

Here is the complete first list of 184 BJP candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections 2019  

Among the safest of BJP seats

Gandhinagar is among the safest BJP seats in India. Advani had represented it in Parliament since 1998. In view of their advancing age, the party had left it to Advani (91) and Murali Manohar Joshi (85) to decide if they want to enter the poll fray again.

Joshi is a sitting MP from Kanpur. As for Amit Shah, this will be his first Lok Sabha election contest. Shah once was Advani’s election manager. Since Gandhinagar is a safe seat, it will allow Shah to concentrate on cranking the BJP poll machinery elsewhere in the country.

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