IT News/Agency
Imphal, Mar 14:
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unveiled its second roster of 72 nominees for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on Wednesday, bringing the total number of declared candidates to 267. According to NDTV, approximately 21% of incumbent Members of Parliament (MPs) were not re-nominated from their respective constituencies. In the initial list, only 33 MPs were replaced out of 195 candidates, while in the subsequent list of 72 names, 30 MPs were substituted. Overall, 140 sitting MPs were retained, while 67 were denied tickets, including two who chose not to run. The second list encompasses 20 candidates each from Maharashtra and Karnataka, seven from Gujarat, six each from Telangana and Haryana, five from Madhya Pradesh, two each from Delhi, Uttarakhand, and Himachal Pradesh, and one each from Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
In Manipur, there are exceptions that the Centre may give ticket to Adhikarimayum Sarda Devi, the president of BJP Manipur and there is suspicion that the current MP, RK Ranjan who is minister of state of external affairs could be dropped. Given the trends in the other states, the speculation might be true. Hence, MP RK Ranjan’s fate remains uncertain.
In Delhi, all but one sitting MP, Manoj Tiwari from North East Delhi, were replaced. Notably, five out of the six MPs who were dropped this time, including Harsh Vardhan, Meenakshi Lekhi, Pravesh Sahib Singh, and Ramesh Bidhuri, have held their seats since 2014.
In Maharashtra, the BJP announced candidates for 20 out of the 23 seats the party won in the 2019 elections. Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal, and Raosaheb Danve were among those announced on Wednesday. Out of the 20 names declared, 14 MPs were repeated, while five had their tickets cancelled. Pankaja Munde replaced her sister Pritam Munde in the family bastion of Beed.
In Gujarat, only three out of seven sitting MPs were retained, with notable omissions like Darshana Jardosh in Surat, where Mukesh Bhai Chandrakant Dalal was fielded instead.
Similarly, in Haryana, three out of six sitting MPs were retained. Banto Kataria, the wife of the deceased leader and former MP Rattan Lal Kataria, was fielded from Ambala, a seat believed to be coveted by former Haryana minister Anil Vij. Suneeta Duggal, the MP from Sirsa, was dropped in favor of Ashok Tanwar, a Congress turncoat.
In Telangana, the majority of BJP candidates for the Lok Sabha elections are defectors from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and the Congress, with a BJP leader stating that out of 15 MP candidates finalized so far, 10 are defectors from other parties in the last four to five years.
In Madhya Pradesh, of the five candidates declared in the second list, two MPs were repeated and two were dropped. In the first list, 10 sitting MPs, including Bhopal MP Pragya Thakur, were dropped.
In Karnataka, 11 out of 20 candidates declared were replacements. Notably, Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar of the Mysore Royal family replaced Pratap Simha in the Mysore constituency. Shobha Karandlaje was moved to the Bengaluru North constituency, and Nalin Kumar Kateel was dropped from the list, with Captain Brijesh Chowta contesting from Dakshina Kannada.
