NEW DELHI, Mar 24: The BJP on Sunday released its fifth list of candidates containing 111 seats for the Lok Sabha election 2024 which included Bollywood actor, former high court judge, industrialist and some new entrants in the party while dropping some old warhorses.
Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut has been given the ticket from Mandi in her home state of Himachal Pradesh while Arun Govil, who played Ram in the popular television serial “Ramayana” will contest from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh. This will be the electoral debut for both Kangana who often called herself a fan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Arun Govil.
Varun Gandhi, who lately had been critical of the performance of the Modi government, has been dropped from BJP’s candidate list in Uttar Pradesh while his mother Maneka Gandhi retains Sultanpur. The BJP has dropped former Union minister Anant Kumar Hegde from Uttara Kannada constituency, Union minister Ashwini Choubey has been dropped from Buxar, while another union minister VK Singh said he was withdrawing his application for nomination.
The new entrant from the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha party Sita Soren and the Congress industrialist Naveen Jindal, who joined the BJP only on Saturday, have been given the ticket to contest. The former judge of the Calcutta High Court Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who resigned judicial post last week and joined the BJP next day, has also been nominated by the party.
There has been no announcement on embattled MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the former chief of the Wrestling Federation of India. The announcement of the fifth list came a day after the party held a meeting of its Central Election Committee to decide the names. The list featured candidates from Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Odisha, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Telangana, U.P. and West Bengal.
(Manas Dasgupta)
