The BJP on Saturday released its third, fourth, fifth and sixth lists of candidates, along with an omnibus NDA list released in Patna that saw film star Shatrughan Sinha being dropped from the Patna Sahib seat, which will now be fought by Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.
Another significant decision taken by the BJP’s Central Election Committee was not to put up a candidate in Mandya in Karnataka and offer support to Sumalatha, Independent candidate and widow of former Union Minister Ambareesh, who passed away recently. She is contesting against Nikhil Kumaraswamy, son of Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy.
The party also continued the ongoing generational shift by dropping former Union Minister Shanta Kumar, who represents Kangra.
This follows BJP president Amit Shah replacing former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
In a related development, Union Minister Uma Bharati has also opted out of the race by writing to Mr. Shah stating her intention to do so; she was appointed vice-president of the party.
Former Union Minister Shahnawaz Hussain was also denied nomination from his old seat of Bhagalpur (Bihar), as that seat has been added to the JD(U) quota.
The party moved Union Minister Giriraj Singh from Nawada — now in the LJP’s kitty — to Begusarai, a seat to which he is reluctant to shift. While 39 out of the 40 seats in Bihar were announced, no candidate was announced for Khagaria.
Rumours of Prime Minister Narendra Modi contesting from Puri in Odisha were scotched by fielding party spokesperson Sambit Patra from the seat. In its fourth list, the BJP declared Pradeep Choudhary as the candidate for Kairana, where the party’s Hukum Singh had died mid-term, following which the BJP lost the by-poll for the seat.
According to Union Minister J. P. Nadda, who is also a part of the CEC, a decision on the Bangalore (South) seat would be taken soon.
Apart from this, the party also released a list of candidates for 22 Assembly seats slated to go to polls on April 11, along with the first phase of polling for the Lok Sabha. The BJP had earlier released candidates for 10 out of 21 Lok Sabha seats, and 99 out of 147 Assembly seats in the State.
In most lists, the BJP has managed to retain sitting MPs, dropping very few of them. The BJP has announced 16 candidates so far for Gujarat with 14 sitting MPs repeated, and two dropped — L.K. Advani from Gandhinagar and Devji Fatepara from Surendranagar. Film star and Ahmedabad (East) MP Paresh Rawal has also declared that he will not be contesting the 2019 polls.
In Maharashtra, the BJP dropped its sitting MP Anil Shirole and fielded Girish Bapat, Minister in the Devendra Fadnavis government. The trend was somewhat stalled in Madhya Pradesh, where the party announced candidates for 14 seats and dropped three sitting MPs — Anoop Mishra from Morena was replaced by Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar; Gyan Singh from Shahdol and Durgadas Uikey from Betul were also dropped.
In Assam, the party announced State Minister Pallab Lochan Das as the candidate from the Tezpur seat, dropping sitting MP Ram Prasad Sharma. Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was earlier considered for the seat but the party decided not to go ahead with his candidature, looking at his role as convenor of the North Eastern Democratic Alliance (NEDA).
Ending speculation on who would be the party’s candidate in Pathanamthitha in Kerala, the BJP announced the name of K. Surendran for it.
