In Delhi, the party has replaced six of its sitting MPs and only one has been repeated.
New Delhi:
In the two lists that the BJP has released so far, the party has named 267 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, and nearly 21% of sitting MPs have already not been repeated from their respective constituencies. The strategy, sources said, has been designed keeping possible anti-incumbency in mind, and the decisions have been based on the feedback the party has got from the ground.
The choice of candidates is also important given the party’s target of winning 370 seats on its own in the Lok Sabha polls, due in just a few weeks from now, which will entail getting 67 more constituencies than it did in 2019.
While the first list, released on March 2, saw only 33 MPs – including Pragya Thakur. Ramesh Bidhuri and Parvesh Verma – being replaced despite 195 candidates being named, 30 MPs were shown the door in Wednesday’s list of 72 names.
Of the 267 names in the two lists, the number of sitting MPs repeated is high, at 140, and 67 MPs have not been given tickets. Two of these MPs, including Gautam Gambhir – who has been replaced in East Delhi by Harsh Malhotra – had decided not to contest.
Numbers Game
In the second list, 20 names each have been declared 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 Delhi, the BJP has replaced six of its sitting MPs and only one, Manoj Tiwari, has been repeated.
Of the 20 candidates declared for Karnataka in the second list, 11 MPs have been replaced while only eight have been repeated.
The story in Maharashtra is the opposite, with 14 MPs being repeated and the tickets of only five getting cancelled. The MPs being repeated include Union Minister Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur, while Pritam Munde has been replaced by her sister, Pankaja Munde, in Beed.
For Gujarat, in the second list, only three out of seven sitting MPs have been repeated. The omissions include Union Minister Darshana Jardosh, who has been replaced by Mukesh Dalal.
Of the six candidates declared in Haryana in the second list, three sitting MPs have been repeated and two have been replaced. A new candidate has been named for a seat where the sitting MP died.
Telangana, where the BJP had won only four seats last time, has seen one MP being repeated and one ticket being cancelled.
Of the five Madhya Pradesh candidates declared in the second list, two MPs have been repeated and two omitted. A new candidate, Vivek Sahu, will be fielded against Nakul Nath in the Chhindwara constituency, which was the only seat the BJP had lost in the state in 2019.
Both MPs named for Himachal in the second list are getting a ticket again – including Union Minister Anurag Thakur from Hamirpur – while both from Uttarakhand have been replaced.
Tripura has seen an MP being replaced while the Dadra And Nagar Haveli MP, who was with the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena, will now contest on a BJP ticket.