BJP releases list of 7 more names

NEW DELHI/KOLKATA: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday announced a list of seven candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, fielding Abhijit Das from Diamond Harbour seat in West Bengal against incumbent lawmaker and Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

Besides Das (54), who is popularly known as Bobby, the BJP also announced three candidates from Punjab, two in Uttar Pradesh and one in Maharashtra in its 12th list for the general elections, which begin on April 19.

Das had unsuccessfully contested the Diamond Harbour seat twice in 2009 and 2014, the latter against Banerjee. The constituency will vote in the seventh and final phase on June 1. The BJP has declared its candidates for all 42 West Bengal seats.

In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has fielded Shashank Mani Tripathi from Deoria and Thakur Vishwadeep Singh from Firozabad parliamentary seats.

In Punjab, the BJP replaced Union minister Som Parkash with his wife Anita Som Parkash from Hoshiarpur seat. The party also fielded former IAS officer Parampal Kaur Sidhu from Bathinda and former legislator Manjit Singh Manna Mianwind from Khadoor Sahib seat.

So far, the BJP has declared its candidates for nine of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab.

In Maharashtra, the BJP nominated its Rajya Sabha MP Chhatrapati Udayanraje Bhosale, a descendent of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, from Satara seat against Shashikant Shinde of the NCP(SP).

The BJP also released the names of 21 candidates for the Odisha assembly elections, nominating former Union minister Dilip Ray from Rourkela seat. So far, the saffron party has announced the names of 131 candidates out of 147 assembly segments in the eastern state.