Gadkari, Anurag, Goyal, Bommai on BJP 2nd list
NEW DELHI: Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal and Anurag Singh Thakur, and three former chief ministers, including Haryana’s Manohar Lal Khattar, figured in the BJP’s second list of 72 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections announced on Wednesday, while the ruling party dropped former Union ministers Sadananda Gowda and Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank’ from their seats.
Khattar and Goyal will be making their Lok Sabha poll debut from Karnal in Haryana and Mumbai North respectively. Former Karnataka
chief minister Basavaraj Bommai will contest from Haveri and former Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat from Haridwar.
BJP chief spokesperson Anil Baluni will also be fighting his first Lok Sabha poll as the BJP fielded him from Garhwal, replacing former Uttarakhand
chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat. Gadkari and Thakur will seek re-election from Nagpur in Maharashtra and Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh respectively.
In the Beed constituency in Maharashtra, Pankaja Munde has replaced her sister and incumbent MP Pritam Munde.
Of the 72 seats for which the party announced its candidates, 20 each were from Maharashtra and Karnataka, seven from Gujarat, six each from Haryana and Telangana, five from Madhya Pradesh, two each from Delhi, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, and one each from Tripura, and Dadar & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu.
Tejasvi Surya, the BJP youth wing president, will contest again from Bangalore South while Union minister Shobha Karandlaje has been shifted from her Udupi Chikmagalur seat to Bangalore North, represented by former Union minister and Karnataka chief minister Gowda in the outgoing Lok Sabha.
Yaduveer Krishnadatta Wadiyar of the erstwhile Mysore royal family replaces Pratap Simha, who was recently in a row for recommending passes to two persons who breached Parliament’s security, as the BJP candidate in the Mysore seat.
Former Karnataka BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel has been dropped from Dakshina Kannada in favour of Brijesh Chowta, who has served in the Army.
In Karnataka, Union minister Pralhad Joshi will fight from Dharwad while former chief minister BS Yediyurappa’s son BY Raghwendra will contest from Shimoga again.