The Central Election Commission may be biding its time before announcing the dates for the upcoming Parliamentary elections, but the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has officially heralded its poll campaign.
Their first list comprising 195 candidates is no less than a typical Bollywood potboiler: Some surprises, a few twists and turns, but largely sticking to a predictable and time-tested screenplay.
Candidate #1 PM Modi From Varanasi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be seeking a third term from Varanasi. He retained the seat in 2019, with a staggering margin of over 4.79 lakh votes. Home Minister Amit Shah will be contesting from Gandhinagar. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is the BJP's pick from Lucknow.
Smriti Irani will be contesting from Amethi in UP. She had defeated Rahul Gandhi at his family bastion in 2019 by over 55,000 votes, chronicling what was by far the biggest shocker of the election season.
Several Cabinet Ministers, currently members of the Rajya Sabha, have been pitchforked into Battleground 2024 as well. Sources had earlier told CNBC-TV18 that the government is keen that ministers contest Lok Sabha polls, as it would allow the BJP to showcase their governance model.
Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav, who just recently retired as a Rajya Sabha MP, is the BJP's pick from Alwar in Rajasthan. This marks his debut in direct elections. Chemical & Fertiliser Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who replaced Harsh Vardhan as Health Minister in the middle of the pandemic is also a Lok Sabha poll debutant. He though is not entirely new to electoral politics, courtesy of an earlier stint as an MLA in Gujarat. He is the BJP's nominee from Porbander, Gujarat.
Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who crossed over to the BJP in March 2020 is the party's candidate from Guna, the same seat he had lost as a Congress candidate in 2019. Guna had been a Scindia family fortress from 1989, with multiple terms for Rajmata Vijayaraje, then her son Madhavrao, till the baton was passed onto Jyotiraditya after Madhavrao died in a plane crash in September 2001. Jyotiraditya retained the seat for 17 years but lost to the BJP’s KP Yadav by 1.25 lakh votes in 2019.
Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, who was deputed to a national role after leading the BJP to victory in the 2021 Assam Elections, is the party’s candidate from Dibrugarh. He replaces party colleague Rameshwar Teli, who had won the seat in 2019.
The Delhi Mash-Up
The BJP announced candidates for five of the seven Delhi seats. Candidates from East Delhi & North West Delhi were not announced. The party had registered a clean sweep in 2019, winning all seven by a staggering margin.
Constituency | BJP Candidate | 2019 Winning Margin |
Chandni Chowk | Harsh Vardhan | 2,28,145 |
North-East Delhi | Manoj Tiwari | 3,66,102 |
East Delhi | Gautam Gambhir | 3,91,222 |
New Delhi | Meenakshi Lekhi | 2,56,504 |
North West Delhi (SC) | Hans Raj Hans | 5,53,897 |
West Delhi | Parvesh Verma | 5,78,486 |
South Delhi | Ramesh Bidhuri | 3,67,043 |
However, the party has decided to drop all but one of their sitting MPs. Harsh Vardhan, Meenakshi Lekhi, Ramesh Bidhuri and Parvesh Verma have been benched. We will have to wait and watch if they are accommodated in the subsequent lists. Manoj Tiwari is the only one to have survived the Delhi ‘restructuring’.
Gautam Gambhir had already announced on X that he was stepping away.
I have requested Hon’ble Party President @JPNadda ji to relieve me of my political duties so that I can focus on my upcoming cricket commitments. I sincerely thank Hon’ble PM @narendramodi ji and Hon’ble HM @AmitShah ji for giving me the opportunity to serve the people. Jai Hind!
— Gautam Gambhir (@GautamGambhir) March 2, 2024
So, who are the new faces in Delhi?
New Delhi: Bansuri Swaraj, the daughter of late Union Minister Sushma Swaraj has been fielded. A lawyer by profession, Bansuri has been the co-convener of BJP Delhi’s legal cell since last year.
Chandni Chowk: Praveen Khandelwal, the Secretary General of Confederation of All India Traders replaces BJP veteran Harsh Vardhan. Chandni Chowk, Delhi’s oldest and biggest shopping hub is termed as a traders’ constituency. The CAIT and the traders community had urged the BJP for Khandelwal’s nomination in 2019 as well.
West Delhi: Kamaljeet Sehrawat is the BJP’s pick. An erstwhile mayor of South Delhi Municipal Corporation, Sehrawat conceded that this came as a ‘big surprise’ to her.
South Delhi: Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly is the BJP’s candidate.
Madhya Pradesh – 29 Seats, 24 Announced
The BJP fielded former MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan from Vidisha, a seat he represented for 14 years from 1991-2005, before securing the state’s top job. He led the BJP to an impressive victory in the Madhya Pradesh state polls last year, securing 163 of the 230 seats. The party brass, however, opted for a ‘generational shift’ and named Mohan Yadav as the new CM. Shivraj’s call-up is an indication that the party is looking at a Madhya Pradesh BJP independent of his towering influence.
Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, who won the Bhopal Lok Sabha seat by over 3.64 lakh votes in 2019 has been benched. Alok Sharma, former mayor of the city has been picked instead. An accused in the Malegaon 2008 bomb blast case, Pragya Thakur has a penchant for controversies.
Uttar Pradesh – 80 Seats, 51 Announced
The party has stuck by their sitting MPs in UP and unlike Delhi, steered away from making any major changes. Ajay Kumar, whose son Ashish is the prime accused in the Lakhimpur Kheri murder case has got the BJP’s nomination from the Kheri Lok Sabha seat. MPs like Sanjeev Balyan, Sakshi Maharaj, and Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti have got tickets. Bollywood actor Hema Malini is the BJP nominee from Mathura. Ritesh Pandey, the BSP lawmaker who recently switched to the BJP is the Ambedkar Nagar candidate. Anupriya Patel’s Apna Dal and OP Rajbhar’s party are BJP’s key allies in UP.
The fate of Maneka and Varun Gandhi hangs in the balance as the candidates for Sultanpur & Pilibhit are yet to be announced.
West Bengal – 42 Seats, 20 Announced
The BJP had won 18 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 compared to two in 2014. Since then, the party has lost two MPs to the Trinamool Congress – Babul Supriyo and Arjun Singh.
Nisith Pramanik, Sukanta Majumdar, Locket Chatterjee, and Shantanu Thakur will be re-contesting from their respective constituencies. John Barla, the MoS for Minority Affairs has been benched from Alipurduar, a seat that he won by over 2.43 lakh votes in 2019. BJP MLA Manoj Tigga has got the green signal instead.
The BJP has also named a candidate for Baharampur, which Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has won and retained since 1999. Nirmal Kumar Saha, a surgeon by profession is the BJP’s pick. Malda South is the only other seat in the Congress’ kitty as far as Bengal is concerned.
The BJP has named Soumendu Adhikari, the younger brother of state’s Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari as the party’s candidate from Kanthi. A stronghold of the Adhikari household, the seat has been represented by Suvendu and Soumendu’s father Sisir Adhikari since 2009 on a TMC ticket. However, the Adhikari family’s ties with TMC were ruptured when Suvendu jumped ship. Dibyendu, another Adhikari sibling is the outgoing TMC MP from neighbouring constituency Tamluk. Though he has officially not severed ties with the Trinamool yet, there are strong chances that he could be the BJP’s nominee for that seat.
Possible Face-Offs
Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala): MoS MeITy Rajeev Chandrashekhar is the BJP’s pick. This sets him up for a match-up with the Congress’ Shashi Tharoor if he were to be renominated. Tharoor has been the Thiruvananthapuram MP since 2009.
Ghatal (West Bengal): The BJP has fielded MLA Hiron Chatterjee, also a popular Bengali film actor. Tollywood superstar Dev has served two terms in Ghatal on a TMC ticket. If he gets the nomination for the third time, this seat could be headed towards a ‘Clash of the Movie Stars’.
Yet To Unfold
The first list had no mention of any seats from Karnataka, Maharashtra, Bihar, Haryana, Odisha, or Tamil Nadu. The BJP is in alliance with Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led NCP in Maharashtra. BJP has recently allied with Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), yet again. BJP has announced an alliance with HD Kumaraswamy-led JD(S) in Karnataka. So, it may be assumed that seat-sharing talks are ongoing in these states.
Conclusion
- The BJP certainly has the first-mover advantage. This would come as yet another jolt to the I.N.D.I.A block which is yet to formalise seat-sharing in many states.
- 90% of the sitting MPs in Uttar Pradesh have been selected, hinting that when it comes to the state which holds the key to power, ‘tried & tested’ is the way to go.
- The party named 28 women candidates in its first list. That’s roughly 15% of the seats announced. BJP claimed 47 candidates belonged to the ‘Youth’ category (below 50 years of age), accounting for 25% of the seats announced. PM Modi, in his recent speeches, has buttressed that his government’s priorities would rest on 4 pillars - Women, Youth, Farmers & Poor.
- The BJP’s first list also reflects the party wants to ensure that top ministers go through the grind of the Lok Sabha elections and not just depend on the cushier Rajya Sabha route.
