Kangana, Arun Govil in BJP fifth list for LS poll; Varun Gandhi dropped
Bollywood star Kangana Ranaut and television actor Arun Govil, who starred in the Ramayan series, are among the names in the BJP’s fifth list of 111 candidates from 17 States for the Lok Sabha election, released on Sunday.
Ms. Ranaut will contest from Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, while Mr. Govil will contest from Meerut.
The party has fielded former Union Minister Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh, but has dropped her son Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit. He was replaced by Uttar Pradesh Minister Jitin Prasada.
Controversial MP from Uttara Kannada Ananth Kumar Hegde was replaced by former Karnataka Speaker Vishveshwara Hegde Kageri.
In Kerala, the party has fielded State unit chief K. Surendran against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from Wayanad.
In all, the BJP has declared candidates for 400 seats in five lists so far.
The fifth list saw some other prominent additions and drops, including former Army chief and Union Minister General V.K. Singh from Ghaziabad. Just minutes before the list was announced, he recused himself from consideration, perhaps anticipating it. He has been replaced by MLA Atul Garg.
The dropping of Mr. Varun Gandhi, who may yet contest as an Independent, is a big development as he and the BJP’s high command have not seen eye to eye on many issues for a long time. No candidate has yet been announced for Rae Bareli.
Veteran leader Santosh Gangwar was also dropped from Bareilly, with Chhatrapal Singh Gangwar replacing him. Interestingly, the BJP has fielded Rajrani Rawat from Barabanki, in place of current MP Upendra Rawat, who withdrew after some objectionable videos allegedly showing his image surfaced.
The BJP also dropped three MPs from the 17 seats it is to fight in Bihar. In Buxar, Mithilesh Tiwari will replace Ashwani Choubey; in Muzzaffarpur, Raj Bhushan Nishad will replace Ajay Nishad; and in Sasaram, Shivesh Ram will replace sitting MP Chedi Paswan.
In Odisha, the signs of the BJPBiju Janata Dal (BJD) alliance negotiations collapsing were evident in the list, as the BJP named candidates for 18 out of 21 Lok Sabha seats in the State.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has been fielded from the western Odisha constituency of Sambalpur, marking his return to direct elections in the State after a gap of 15 years. But the fielding of Baijayant Panda, national vicepresident of the BJP, who had earlier won the Kendrapara Lok Sabha seat as a Biju Janata Dal candidate, is significant as he and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik have been at odds.
National spokespersons Aparajita Sarangi and Sambit Patra have been renominated by the party for the Bhubaneswar and Puri Lok Sabha constituencies, respectively.
The BJP has dropped four sitting MPs in Odisha, including Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Bishweswar Tudu from the Mayurbhanj constituency.
In Haryana, hours after twotime Congress MP and industrialist Naveen Jindal and Independent MLA Ranjit Singh Chautala, who is also a State Cabinet Minister, joined the BJP, the two figured in the party’s list for Lok Sabha candidates, bagging ticket for Kurukshetra and Hisar respectively. While the BJP’s incumbent Kurukshetra MP Nayab Saini took over as the party’s new Chief Minister earlier this month, the party’s Hisar Lok Sabha MP Brijendra Singh quit the BJP to join the Congress a few days ago.
In West Bengal, the BJP announced names for 19 seats, meaning that candidates have now been named for 38 out of the 42 seats in the State. Significant names include former High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay from Tamluk.
The Christian dominated seat of South Goa will see Pallavi Sriniwas Dempo, wife of the owner of the Dempo industrial group Sriniwas Dempo, in the fray. In Jharkhand, Sita Soren, the daughterinlaw of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha founder Shibu Soren, will contest from Dumka, a seat that Mr. Soren used to contest from.
In Andhra Pradesh, the BJP has fielded Kiran Kumar Reddy, the last CM of the erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh, as its candidate from Rajampet.