Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Who lost out, who made it in BJP’s first list of 195

BJP on Saturday announced the first list of 195 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from 16 states and two Union Territories. The list includes the names of 34 Union Ministers and Ministers of State(MoS) and two former Chief Ministers.

Announcing the list, BJP National General Secretary Vinod Tawde said the party is confident that it would form the government for the third term under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a much bigger mandate.

He also said that the party has been working on further expanding its footprint across various states and also to strengthen the National Democratic Alliance.

Here’s a look at the ministers who made it, the ones who were dropped and the new names that were included in the first list.

The ministers who will contest: The BJP announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest again from Varanasi in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. It also named 34 Union ministers including Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Smriti Irani in the first list of 195 candidates. Other Union ministers fielded by the BJP include Mansukh Mandaviya, Jitendra Singh, Sarbananda Sonowal, Gajendra Shekhawat, Bhupender Yadav, G Kishan Reddy, Kiren Rijiju, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Arjun Ram Meghwal and Arjun Munda. The list also includes two former ministers as well as Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, who will fight again from Kota in Rajasthan, and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from Vidisha.

The names missing from the first list: The list saw major changes for Delhi with Ramesh Bidhuri, Parvesh Verma, Meenakshi Lekhi and Harsh Vardhan being dropped from their respective seats, while Sadhvi Pragya Thakur was also dropped from her Bhopal seat. Besides Lekhi, John Barla is another Union minister who has been dropped.

The new names:  Bansuri Swaraj, daughter of the late BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, will make her poll debut from the New Delhi seat, Kamaljeet Sehrawat will contest from the from West Delhi, MLA Ramvir Singh Bidhuri from South Delhi, Praveen Khadelwal from Chandni Chowk. Bhojpuri singer and actor Pawan Singh has been fielded from Asansol in West Bengal. In Uttar Pradesh, the party has fielded former BSP MP Ritesh Pandey from Ambedkar Nagar Lok Sabha seat in UP. In Jharkhand, former Congress MP Geeta Koda has been fielded from Singhbhum (ST reserved).

The old who made it: Manoj Tiwari has been retained from the North East Delhi constituency. Hema Malini, Ravi Kishan, Ajay Mishra Teni, Mahesh Sharma, SPS Baghel and Sakshi Maharaj are among those being repeated from their seats.

With inputs from agencies