BJP names Anurag Thakur from Hamirpur, Manohar Lal Khattar Karnal

Tribune News Service

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, March 13

The ruling BJP on Wednesday released the second list of 72 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, fielding Union Ministers Anurag Thakur, Piyush Goyal, Nitin Gadkari, Pralhad Joshi and Bharti Pravin Pawar and three former Chief Ministers ML Khattar, Trivendra Singh Rawat and Basavaraj Bommai.

With this, the BJP has named 267 candidates against 82 by the Congress. The second list features candidates for two of the four constituencies in Himachal Pradesh and six of the 10 seats in Haryana.

Hans Raj Hans among 35% of MPs dropped

• The BJP has dropped Mysore MP Pratap Simha, who had signed the pass of Sagar Sharma, one of accused in the Lok Sabha security breach case
• Sunita Duggal (Sirsa-SC) and Punjabi folk singer Hans Raj Hans (North West Delhi-SC) also denied ticket
• Former Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, Uttarakhand ex-CM Tirath Rawat and former Karnataka BJP chief Nalin Kateel rested too

3 ex-CMs to contest

Three former CMs fielded — ML Khattar from Karnal in Haryana, Trivendra Rawat from Haridwar in Uttarakhand and Basavaraj Bommai from Haveri in Karnataka

2 royals make it too

Of the two royals in the BJP’s list of 72 candidates, Yaduveer Chamaraja Wadiyar fielded from Mysore constituency and Maharani Kriti Debbarma from Tripura East

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag, a four-term MP from Hamirpur, will defend his segment, so will sitting Shimla (SC) parliamentarian Suresh Kashyap. The party is expected to name candidates for Mandi and Kangra once the outcome of the Supreme Court case involving six disqualified Congress MLAs is known.

In Haryana, the BJP has fielded former CM Khattar from his home segment of Karnal, where the sitting MP is Sanjay Bhatia. Ashok Tanwar, former Haryana Congress president who recently joined the BJP, has been fielded from Sirsa reserved constituency, dropping sitting MP Sunita Duggal.

In Ambala, the BJP has nominated Banto Kataria, the wife of late Union Minister RL Kataria. The party has repeated sitting MPs Rao Inderjit Singh Yadav, Chaudhary Dharambir Singh and Krishan Pal Gurjar from Gurgaon, Bhiwani Mahendragarh and Faridabad. Candidates for Sonepat, Hisar, Rohtak and Kurukshetra have not been named. While Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari will again contest from Nagpur, Commerce and Food Minister Piyush Goyal, a Rajya Sabha MP, has been fielded for his maiden Lok Sabha fight from Mumbai North. Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi will defend his current Dharwad segment in Karnataka.

Besides Khattar, the two other former CMs in the list are Trivendra Rawat (Uttarakhand) from Haridwar—where the BJP has dropped sitting MP and former HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank—and Basavaraj Bommai (Karnataka) from Haveri. Another Rajya Sabha MP and BJP’s national media chief Anil Baluni has been fielded from Garhwal, dropping sitting MP and former Uttarakhand CM Tirath Rawat.

Of the 72 seats for which candidates were named today, the BJP had won 62 in 2019. Of the 62 sitting MPs, it has dropped 22—a whopping 35.4 per cent. Among prominent MPs dropped are Pratap Simha (Mysore seat) who had signed the visitor form of Sagar Sharma, an accused in the December 2023 Lok Sabha security breach case; minister Darshana Jardosh (Surat), former Karnataka BJP chief Nalin Kateel (Dakshina Kannada); former Union Minister Sadananda Gowda (Bangalore North), Sunita Duggal (Sirsa) and Punjabi singer Hans Raj Hans (North West Delhi-SC).

Also, Union Minister Shobha Karandlaje’s seat in Karnataka has been changed from Udupi Chikmagalur to Bangalore North, where she has replaced Sadananda Gowda. Opposite the sole Congress Lok Sabha MP in Karnataka, DK Suresh, the BJP has fielded noted cardiac surgeon CN Manjunath from Bangalore Rural. Former Karnataka Minister B Sriramulu has been nominated from Bellary ST segment while Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha chief Tejasvi Surya will defend Bangalore South seat. Importantly, the BJP list has two royals—Yaduveer Chamaraja Wadiyar from Mysore and Maharani Kriti Debbarma from Tripura East. The BJP has spared Tripura East seat, where it has a sitting MP, for the state’s formidable tribal party Tipra Motha led by Pradyot Debbarma with whom the saffron outfit recently reached an electoral understanding. Kriti Singh Debbarma is Pradyot’s sister.

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