Gadkari, Goyal among 72 more BJP candidates named
Party drops Pratap Simha, Mysuru MP who triggered a row after LS security breach
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday nominated nine Union ministers and three former chief ministers in its second list of 72 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, spanning 10 states and a Union territory, and dropping 28 sitting lawmakers.
The party fielded commerce minister Piyush Goyal from Mumbai North, and renominated roadways minister Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur, information and broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur from Hamirpur and parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi from Dharwad.
Union ministers of state Bhagwant Khuba was picked from Bidar in Karnataka, Shobha Karandjale from Bengaluru North, Krishan Pal Gurjar from Faridabad in Haryana, Rao Inderjit Singh from Gurugram and Bharti Pawar from Dindori in Maharashtra.
The party replaced Union minister Darshana Jardosh in Surat, where it fielded Mukesh Bhai Chandrakant Dalal. Also, in the fray are three former CMs – Trivendra Singh Rawat from Hardwar in Uttarakhand, B.S. Bommai from Haveri in Karnataka and Manohar Lal Khattar from Karnal in Haryana.
The party named its first list of 195 candidates across 16 states on 2 March. In all, it has named 267 candidates. The party has announced its candidates for all seven seats in Delhi, 29 in Madhya Pradesh, two in Tripura and four in Uttarakhand.
In the second list, nine candidates come from scheduled tribes, and 10 from scheduled castes.
Fifteen are women. The list covered Haryana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tripura, Daman and Diu, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Uttarakhand.
In Karnataka, the party dropped state unit chief Nalin Kumar Kateel from Dakshina Kannada in favour of Brijesh Chowta. The party also removed Pratap Simha from Mysuru and gave the ticket to Yaduveera Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wodeyar, the scion of the royal family of
BJP fielded nomination of commerce minister Piyush Goyal from Mumbai North, and renominated roadways minister Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur
Mysuru.
Simha had triggered a controversy after it came to light that two men who breached the Lok Sabha security and sprayed coloured smoke in the chamber in December last year got their passes signed by him.