The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has so far named 267 candidates, unveiled its second list of 72 candidates for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections on Wednesday. Approximately 21% of current Members of Parliament are not re-elected from their respective seats.
Out of the 195 candidates included in the first list, only 33 MPs were replaced; in contrast, 30 MPs were replaced in the 72-name second list. 140 sitting MPs have been repeated overall, while 67—two of whom chose not to run—have not received tickets.
In the second list, there are twenty candidates from each of the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka, seven from Gujarat, six from Telangana and Haryana, five from Madhya Pradesh, two from Delhi, one from Dadra, and one from Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
All sitting MPs in the nation’s capital were replaced by the party, with the exception of Manoj Tiwari of North East Delhi. Harsh Vardhan, Meenakshi Lekhi, Pravesh Sahib Singh, and Ramesh Bidhuri are the five out of the six MPs that were removed this time. They had all held their seats since 2014.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has declared candidates in Maharashtra for 20 out of the 23 seats it won in the 2019 elections. Among the candidates revealed on Wednesday are Piyush Goyal, Raosaheb Danve, and Union minister Nitin Gadkari. 14 of the 20 MPs whose names were announced were repeated, and five of them had their tickets revoked. Pankaja Munde replaced her sister Pritam Munde in the Beed family stronghold.
Gujarat saw only three out of seven sitting MPs repeated, with notable omissions like Darshana Jardosh in Surat, where it fielded Mukesh Bhai Chandrakant Dalal.
Similarly, in Haryana, three sitting MPs were repeated out of six candidates declared. The BJP fielded Banto Kataria, the wife of its deceased leader and former MP Rattan Lal Kataria, from Ambala, a seat which was believed to be coveted by former Haryana minister Anil Vij. The MP from Sirsa in Haryana, Suneeta Duggal, was also dropped in favour of Ashok Tanwar, a Congress turncoat.
In Telangana, the majority of the candidates who were given the BJP tickets for the Lok Sabha elections are defectors from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and the Congress.
“Out of 15 MP candidates finalised so far, as many as 10 candidates are defectors from other parties in the last four to five years. The genuine and loyal leaders have been ignored,” a BJP leader said on condition of anonymity.
Two MPs from the five Madhya Pradesh candidates listed in the second list have been added again, and two others have been removed, according to news agency. Ten sitting Members of Parliament, including Pragya Thakur of Bhopal, were removed from the first list.
Out of the 20 announced candidates, 11 MPs in Karnataka were replaced. In a significant move, Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar of the Mysuru Royal family has taken Pratap Simha’s seat in the Mysuru constituency. Shobha Karandlaje, a Vokkaliga leader, has been transferred to the Bengaluru North constituency. Former BJP state president Nalin Kumar Kateel has also been removed from the list, and Dakshina Kannada candidate Captain Brijesh Chowta is now running.
