Guj BJP workers awash in celebrations after party fields Shah for Gandhinagar LS seat once again

AHMEDABAD: The workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Gujarat switched over to the celebratory mood after the party announced to field Union Home Minister Amit Shah from the Gandhinagar seat in the upcoming General Elections.

Workers chanted slogans of 'baar baar Modi sarkar' and Bharat Mata ki jai as they burst crackers soon after the BJP announced its first list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, encompassing 16 States and 2 Union Territories with a total of 195 nominees.

The first list of candidates includes 34 ministers from both the Union and state levels, along with the name of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. The announced names included those for 51 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 20 in West Bengal and five in Delhi. Eight women and 47 young leaders feature in the party's first list of candidates for 16 States and Union Territories, including 57 candidates from Other Backward Classes (OBC), 27 from Scheduled Castes (SC) and 17 from Scheduled Tribes (ST).

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will fight again from Kota in Rajasthan, and Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya from Porbandar. However, other Union Ministers whose names have been announced by the BJP in the first list of candidates include Rajnath Singh, 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 BJP has re-nominated Defence Minister Rajnath Singh for the Lucknow constituency and Union Minister Smriti Irani for Amethi in Uttar Pradesh. The party has also chosen to field actor-politician Hema Malini, MoS Home Affairs Ajay Mishra Teni, Mahesh Sharma, SPS Baghel, and Sakshi Maharaj once more in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from UP.

The BJP announced the list of 15 candidates from Gujarat for the upcoming Lok Sabha election. Gujarat has a total of 26 Lok Sabha seats. Among those repeated are Vinod Chavda on the Kutch seat, which is reserved for Schedule Caste candidates, Bharatsinh Dabhi on the Patan seat, Amitbhai Shah on the Gandhinagar seat, Poonamben Madam on the Jamnagar seat, Miteshbhai Patel on the Anand seat, Devusinh Chauhan on the Kheda seat, Mansukh Vasava on the Bharuch seat, Prabhubhai Vasava on the Bardoli seat; and CR Patil on the Navsari seat.

State BJP President and BJP Lok Sabha Candidate from Navsari CR Patil has exuded his confidence in the party winning all the 26 seats in the state. "BJP will win all 26 seats in Gujarat. And we are moving ahead with the aim that all 26 seats are won with more than 5 lakh votes. The party workers are eager to have this victory..." Patil said. Dinesh Makwana (Karnavati city unit BJP spokesperson) and former Deputy Mayor of AMC is the new faces for the Ahmedabad (West) seat, which is reserved for Schedule Caste candidates.

The seats for which candidates are yet to be announced are Sabarkantha, Mahesana, Ahmedabad East, Vadodara, Chhota Udepur, Surat, Valsad, Bhavnagar, Amreli, Junagadh and Surendranagar. In Madhya Pradesh, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia is set to vie for the seat in his familial stronghold of Guna, while former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will contest for the Vidisha constituency.

In Delhi, the saffron party has designated Bansuri Swaraj, daughter of former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, as its candidate for the New Delhi seat, Kamaljit Sehrawat for West Delhi, and Ramvir Singh Bidhuri for South Delhi. Additionally, Praveen Khandelwal will contest from the Chandni Chowk seat, while Manoj Tiwari has been selected for North East Delhi.

Meanwhile, former Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Meenakshi Lekhi, Minister of State for External Affairs, and MPs Ramesh Bidhuri and Parvesh Verma have been dropped from Delhi Lok Sabha seats.

The BJP won 303 seats in the 2019 polls but currently, it has 290 members in Lok Sabha for various reasons including some MPs recently resigning after winning assembly polls. Modi has set a target for the BJP to win at least 370 seats on its own in this Lok Sabha election and more than 400 for the NDA.