In light of experience from the recent assembly elections, the BJP on Saturday declared a list of 195 candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, even before the elections have been formally announced.
The moves give the party a head start over its opponents as the candidates would get more time for preparation. The BJP has announced candidates for those states where it is not in alliance with anyone. Here are five takeaways from the 195-strong candidates list of the BJP.
The big names:
The list included the names of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla among others. All four of them will contest the polls from their sitting seats.
As many as 34 central ministers have featured in the list even though many of them are Rajya Sabha members. Some other prominent names in the list include Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna, Smriti Irani from Amethi, Bhupendra Yadav from Alwar, Mansukh Mandaviya from Porbandar, Rajeev Chandrashekhar from Thiruvananthapuram and V Muraleedharan from Attingal.
Three former Chief Ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Sarbananda Sonowal and Biplab Kumar Deb -- also found place in list.
The big drops
The BJP sent out a strong message as it dropped several sitting MPs who faced adverse reports or anti-incumbency. The party decided against giving a re-run to four of its sitting MPs in Delhi. Those dropped include Minister of State Meenakshi Lekhi, former health minister Harshvardhan, Parvesh Verma and Ramesh Bidhuri, who had courted controversy for his remarks against a Muslim MP. Controversial MP from Bhopal, Pragya Thakur, has also been dropped.
The old and the new:
The party seems to have broken its unwritten rule of the 2019 elections when it did not give tickets to those above 75 years of age. BJP has given a ticket to Hema Malini, the sitting MP from Mathura, at 75 years. She has been fielded for the third time.
Among the new entrants was Bansuri Swaraj, the daughter of the late Sushma Swaraj. Bansuri, spokesperson in Delhi BJP, will fight her debut polls from the New Delhi seat.
Former defence minister and veteran Congress leader AK Antony’s son Anil Anthony has been fielded from Kerala's Pathanamthitta seat.
Among the 195, 47 candidates are below 50 years of age.
Social engineering:
57 OBCs, 27 Dalits, 18 tribals, and 28 women candidates featured on the list. The party has kept caste calculus in mind, expecting its focus on social engineering to counter the INDIA alliance’s campaign theme of social justice.
South focus:
Apart from Kerala, BJP also named candidates to seats in Telangana in the first batch. BJP has announced nine names to constituencies across Telangana where it won four seats in 2019. The prominent names include G Kishan Reddy, Bandi Sanjay Kumar, Arvind Dharmapuri and Etela Rajendar.
Similarly, the party announced Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s candidature from the Thiruvananthapuram seat. The BJP declared 12 candidates to Kerala including Dr Abdul Salam -- the only Muslim in the list of 195.
