PM From Varanasi, Pragya Out, ‘Can’t Contest,’ Says Asansol Candidate: BJP’s LS Poll Picks

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its first list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections comprising a total of 195 names across 16 states and two Union territories.

Prime minister Narendra Modi who will once again contest from Varanasi tops the otherwise alphabetical list. Meanwhile, a named candidate has said he won’t contest.

The list was announced at a press conference in New Delhi on Saturday (February 2), by BJP general secretary Vinod Tawde in the presence of national vice president Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda, and national media in-charge Anil Baluni and national media co-head Sanjay Mayukh.Announcing the list Tawde said that it is based on the decisions taken by the BJP’s central election committee meeting held on February 29 under Modi.

‘The BJP is trying to increase the presence of not just the BJP but also the NDA [National Democratic Alliance]. Not just the BJP, but the people of this country also want phir ek bar Modi sarkar [once again, Modi’s government],’ he said.

Tawde said that the list reflects all sections of the population including 47 youth, 27 from Scheduled Castes (SC), 18 from Scheduled Tribes and 57 from the OBC (Other Backward Castes) community.

However the 195-candidate list includes only 28 woman candidates.

The first list includes 51 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 20 from West Bengal, 24 from Madhya Pradesh, 15 each from Gujarat and Rajasthan, 12 from Kerala, 9 from Telangana, 11 from Assam, 11 each from Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, 5 from Delhi, 2 from Jammu and Kashmir, 3 from Uttarakhand, 2 from Arunachal Pradesh and 1 each from Goa, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar and Daman and Diu.