The BJP on Tuesday announced the name of Vadodara deputy Mayor Ranjan Ben Bhatta as its candidate for the Vadodara lok Sabha seat vacated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Narendra Rawat is the Congress candidate from Vadodara lok Sabha seat. Rawat, the chief of the Vadodara unit of the party, was the first choice of the Congress to contest the lok Sabha polls from Vadodara after clearing the much-talked about primaries exercise for candidate selection initiated by Rahul Gandhi. But he had withdrawn his candidature, making way for AICC general secretary Madhusudan Mistry to contest from there.
Modi won Vadodara seat by a margin of 5.7 lakh votes while Mistry had collected a little more than 2.5 lakh votes. The BJP also announced the name of local municipal corporator Suresh Patel as the candidate for the Maninagar Assembly constituency that Modi represented as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. The BJP has also declared the name of local leader Prem Singh Shakya as the candidate for the Mainpuri lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh vacated by SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The names were part of BJP’s list of candidates for the bypolls to 33 Assembly constituencies in States of Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. By-elections to these constituencies would be held on September 13 and results will be declared on September 16. The last date for filing nominations is August 27.
While there are vacancies to 11 Assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, there are nine in Gujarat, four in Rajasthan, three in Assam, two in West Bengal and one each in Chhattisgarh, Sikkim, Tripura and Andhra Pradesh. Bypolls to Medak in Andhra Pradesh, Vadodara in Gujarat and Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh lok Sabha constituencies will also be held at the same time. The party has also fielded senior BJP leader lalji Tandon’s son Gopal Tandon from lucknow East Assembly constituency in Uttar Pradesh for the ensuing bypolls.
The BJP Central Election Committee finalised the party candidates for 10 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh and nine in Gujarat, besides three each in Assam and Rajasthan and two in West Bengal, besides one each in Chhattisgarh, Sikkim and Tripura.