The BJP on Thursday announced its first list of 54 candidates from eight States for the lok Sabha. The list includes names of former party president Nitin Gadkari and Deputy leader in the lok Sabha Gopinath Munde who will contest from Nagpur and Beed lok Sabha seats respectively in Maharashtra.
West Bengal State unit chief Rahul Sinha will be fielded from Kolkata (North). BJP Yuva Morcha chief Anurag Thakur will seek re-election from Hamirpur and former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Shanta Kumar will contest from Kangra. Kiren Rijiju, ex-MP, from Arunachal Pradesh, will try his luck from Arunachal (North). Sixteen names have been cleared from Maharashtra and 17 from West Bengal. The BJP has announced three candidates from Himachal Pradesh, six from Odisha, five from Jammu & Kashmir and two from Arunachal Pradesh.
Former Minister Jual Oram will contest from Sundargarh (ST) and Sangeeta Kumar Singh Deo from Bolangir. Kirit Somaiya, ex-MP, is to be fielded by the party from North-East Mumbai, Maharashtra. BJP will field Shripad Naik from North Goa and party State General Secretary Narendra Keshav Sawikar from South Goa. Two BJP candidates for Manipur RK Ranjan Singh (Inner Manipur) and Ganagnumei Kanei from outer Manipur.
The list was released after party’s Central Election Committee (CEC) met here at the party headquarters. The meeting was presided over by BJP president Rajnath Singh and attended by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and senior leaders lK Advani, MM Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, M Venkaiah Naidu, Nitin Gadkari, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, J P Nadda, Vinay katiyar, Thawarchand Ghelot, organisational General Secretary Ram lal and others.