The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday released its tenth list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections declaring 29 nominees for Uttar Pradesh and 10 for West Bengal.
In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has fielded Uttar Pradesh minister Satyadev Pachauri from Kanpur Lok Sabha seat replacing sitting MP and veteran party leader Murli Manohar Joshi.
The party had earlier made clear that Joshi would not be contesting the Lok Sabha polls following which there were reports suggesting that the former Union minister was not happy with the way the ruling party dealt with his candidature. Joshi was apparently unhappy with the manner in which party’s central leadership conveyed the decision to him.
Joshi had vacated his Varanasi Lok Sabha seat in 2014 for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Joshi had won the Varanasi seat in 2009. Joshi had previously won the Allahabad Lok Sabha seat for three terms before losing the 2009 election.
In its fresh list of candidates, the BJP has swapped the Lok Sabha constituencies of Union minister Maneka Gandhi and her son Varun Gandhi. Maneka Gandhi had won the 2014 polls from Pilibhit. She has now been moved to Sultanpur Lok Sabha constituency, from where Varun Gandhi was elected in 2014.
Maneka Gandhi is a seven-time Lok Sabha MP and has won six times from Pilibhit Lok Sabha seat. In 2009, she vacated Pilibhit seat for son Varun Gandhi, who made a successful debut in that year’s parliamentary polls. Maneka Gandhi contested and won 2009 Lok Sabha election from Aonla seat.
In 2014, Varun Gandhi moved from Pilibhit to Sultanpur and Maneka Gandhi returned to her favourite Lok Sabha constituency.
Another Uttar Pradesh minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi has been given the BJP ticket to contest from the Lok Sabha polls. She is the party’s candidate from Allahabad. Shyama Charan Gupta had won the Allahabad seat in 2014. Gupta recently joined the Samajwadi Party in a major embarrassment to the ruling BJP in Uttar Pradesh.
Actor-turned-politician Jaya Prada, who joined the BJP only Tuesday, has been nominated as the party candidate from Rampur. Naipal Singh of the BJP had won this seat in 2014. Singh is keeping unwell for some time and said to be out of contention for the Lok Sabha polls in the BJP on the account of age. He is 78.
The Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey is the party candidate from Chandoli while Union minister Manoj Sinha has been named from Ghazipur Lok Sabha seat. Both are sitting MP from their respective Lok Sabha seats. Jagdambika Pal will also seek re-election from his Domariaganj parliamentary constituency in Uttar Pradesh.
In West Bengal, the party has fielded Humayun Kabir, who switched sides from Trinamool Congress to the BJP in 2018, from Murshidabad. Actor Joy Banerjee is the BJP candidate from Ulberia in West Bengal.
Here’s the 10th list that BJP released on Tuesday
Uttar Pradesh
Rampur: Jaya Prada
Pilibhit: Varun Gandhi, MP
Dhaurahra: Rekha Verma
Sultanpur: Maneka Gandhi, MP
Farrukhabad: Mukesh Rajpoot
Etawah (SC): Ramashankar Katheriya, MP
Kannauj: Subrat Pathak
Kanpur: Satyadev Pachuri
Akbarpur: Davendra Singh Bhole, MP
Jalaun (SC): Bhanu Pratap Verma, MP
Hamirpur: Pushpendra Singh Chandel, MP
FatehpurSadhvi Niranjan Jyoti,MP
Kaushambi (SC): Vinod Sonkar, MP
Allahabad: Rita Bahuguna Joshi
Barabanki (SC): Upednra Rawat
Faizabad: Lallu Singh, MP
Bahraich (SC): Akshaywar lal Gaud
Kaiserganj: Brijbhushan Sharan Singh, MP
Shrawasti: Daddan Mishra, MP
Gonda: Kirtiwardhan Singh, MP
Domariyaganj: Jagdambika Pal, MP
Basti: Harish Dwivedi, MP
Maharajganj: Pankaj Chaudhary, MP
Kushi Nagar: Vijay Dubey, MP
Bansgaon (SC): Kamlesh Paswan, MP
Salempur: Ravindra Kushwaha, MP
Ballia: Virendra Singh Mast
Ghazipur: Manoj Sinha
Chandauli: Mahendra Nath Pandey
West Bengal
Baharampur: Krishna Juardar Arya
Murshidabad: Humayun Kabir
Ranaghat (SC)Dr Mukut Mani Adhikari
Bangaon (SC): Shantanu Thakur
Diamond harbour: Nilanjan Roy
Howrah: Rantidev Sen Gupta
Uluberia: Joy Banerjee
KanthiDr Debashish Samant
BankuraDr Subhash Sarkar
Bolpur (SC): Ram Prashad Das