New Delhi: Days after BJP’s Central Election Committee (CEC) held a marathon meeting, the saffron party released its first list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. No Odisha MP figures in the list of 195, from 16 states and 2 UTs, announced on Saturday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will once again contest from Varanasi, from where he won in 2014 and 2019. The list, which includes 34 Union ministers and two former chief ministers, features Union Home Minister Amit Shah from Gujarat’s Gandhinagar.
Two other Union ministers will contest in Kerala — Rajeev Chandrasekhar from Thiruvananthapuram and V Muraleedharan from Attingal.
An interesting choice is that of the late Sushma Swaraj’s daughter Basuri Swaraj from New Delhi, replacing Union minister Meenakshi Lekhi. Former Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan will be BJP’s candidate from Vidisha constituency, while ex-Tripura CM Biplab Kumar Deb will seek to be elected from Tripura West.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will contest from Kota in Rajasthan. Two other prominent candidates from Rajasthan are Union ministers Bhupender Yadav (Alwar) and Gajendra Shekhawat (Jodhpur). There are 28 women candidates, 47 youth, 27 from Scheduled Caste, 18 from Scheduled Tribes and 57 OBC candidates in BJP’s first list.
