Lok Sabha Polls 2024: BJP drops Pragya Singh Thakur and feilds Alok Sharma from Bhopal seat.
Lok Sabha Polls 2024: In a major development, the BJP has dropped Pragya Singh Thakur from the Bhopal seat. The saffron party has given the’safe’ seat to Alok Sharma. Notably, PM Modi was unhappy with the comments that Sadhvi Pragya Thakur made against Mahatma Gandhi.
The ruling BJP on Saturday announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi will fight again from Varanasi in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as it named 34 Union ministers, including Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Smriti Irani, in the first list of 195 candidates.
Shivraj Singh Chouhan To Contest From Vidisha
The list also included two former chief ministers, Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh) and Biplab Deb (Tripura), as well as Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, who will fight again from Kota in Rajasthan. Chouhan has been fielded from Vidisha and Deb from Tripura West.
Union ministers fielded by the BJP through the first list also included Mansukh Mandaviya, Jitendra Singh, Sarbananda Sonowal, Gajendra Shekhawat, Bhupender Yadav, G Kishan Reddy, Kiren Rijiju, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Arjun Ram Meghwal and Arjun Munda.
Announcing the list, BJP National General Secretary Vinod Tawde said the party is confident that it will form the government for the third term under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a much bigger mandate. He also said that the party has been working on further expanding its footprint across various states and strengthening the National Democratic Alliance.
The list included 28 women and 47 young leaders, he said. The announced names included those for 51 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 20 in West Bengal and five in Delhi.
Leaders Who Did Not Make First List of BJP:
1 – Pragya Singh Thakur replaced by Alok Sharma from Bhopal
2 – Meenakashi Lekhi replaced by Bansuri Swaraj from New Delhi
3 – Ramesh Bidhuri replaced by Ramvir Singh Bidhuri from South Delhi
4 – Dr Harsh Vardhan replaced by Praveen Khandelwal from Delhi, Chandni Chowk
5 – Parvesh Verma replaced by Kamaljeet Sehrawat from West Delhi
6 – Ramakant Bhargava replaced by Shivraj Singh Chouhan from Vidisha
7 – Krishna Pal Singh Yadav replaced by Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna
8 – Kummanam Rajasekharan replaced by Rajeev Chandrasekhar from Thiruvananthapuram
The list saw major changes for Delhi, with Ramesh Bidhuri, Parvesh Verma, Meenakshi Lekhi and Harsh Vardhan being dropped from their respective seats, while Sadhvi Pragya Thakur was also dropped from her Bhopal seat.
Bansuri Swaraj, daughter of the late BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, will make her poll debut from the New Delhi seat; Kamaljeet Sehrawat will contest from West Delhi, MLA Ramvir Singh Bidhuri from South Delhi, Praveen Khadelwal from Chandni Chowk; and Manoj Tiwari has been retained from the North East Delhi constituency.
Besides Lekhi, John Barla is another Union minister who has been dropped from their seat.
Bhojpuri singer and actor Pawan Singh has been fielded from Asansol in West Bengal.
In Uttar Pradesh, the party has fielded former BSP MP Ritesh Pandey from the Ambedkar Nagar Lok Sabha seat in UP, while Hema Malini, Ravi Kishan, Ajay Mishra Teni, Mahesh Sharma, SPS Baghel and Sakshi Maharaj are among those being repeated from their seats. In Jharkhand, former Congress MP Geeta Koda has been fielded from Singhbhum (ST reserved).
Modi has set a target for the BJP to win at least 370 seats on its own in this Lok Sabha election and more than 400 for the NDA. The Election Commission is expected to announce the poll schedule later this month and the elections are likely to be held in April-May.
The BJP had won 303 seats in the 2019 polls but currently it has 290 members in the Lok Sabha, The number is decreasing for various reasons, including some MPs recently resigning after winning assembly polls.
(With inputs from agencies)
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