BJP Lok Sabha 2024 list: PM Modi, Shah to contest from same seats; shake-up in Delhi

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has announced its first list of 195 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The list includes 34 ministers at the central and state levels, and two being former chief ministers.

1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest from Varanasi for the third time. He has been representing the constituency since 2014. In his first election, Modi had defeated Congress's Ajay Rai and Aam Aadmi Party convenor Arvind Kejriwal ten years ago.

2. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is set to contest from Kota, Rajasthan. Defence minister Rajnath Singh and home minister Amit Shah are also fielded from the same seats, Lucknow and Gandhinagar respectively.

3. Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar will be contesting as a BJP candidate in Thiruvananthapuram, possibly facing Congress' leader and incumbent MP Shashi Tharoor.

4. Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who despite the BJP's resounding victory in Madhya Pradesh was replaced by Mohan Yadav as Madhya Pradesh chief minister, has now been fielded to contest from his stronghold Vidisha. Former CM Biplab Deb is fielded from Tripura.

5. After Ravi Kishan, Dinesh Lal Yadav and Manoj Tiwari, another Bhojpuri actor joins politics. Pawan Singh will contest from Asansol.

6. In the national capital, the BJP replaced four out of five seats it announced. Harsh Vardhan and Meenakshi Lekhi have been dropped, while late Sushma Swaraj's daughter Bansuri Swaraj has been fielded from New Delhi.

7. Union minister Smriti Irani will contest again from Amethi for the third time. It is not known if Congress will field Rahul Gandhi again, who was defeated by her in the last general elections.

8. Repeat candidates from Uttar Pradesh for Lok Sabha polls include Hema Malini (Mathura), Ajay Mishra Teni (Lakhimpur Kheri), Mahesh Sharma (Gautam Buddhanagar), SPS Baghel (Agra), and Sakshi Maharaj (Unnao).

9. The BJP has fielded union environment minister Bhupender Yadav from Alwar; civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna; health minister Mansukh Mandaviya from Porbandar; Sarbananda Sonowal from Dibrugarh and Kiren Rijiju from Arunachal Pradesh.

10. Calicut University's former V-C Abdul Salam is the lone muslim candidate to contest from Kerala's Malappuram. Anil Antony, who left Congress to join the Saffron party, will contest from Pathanamthitta.

BJP announced candidates on 51 seats from Uttar Pradesh, 20 from West Bengal, 24 from Madhya Pradesh, 15 each from Gujarat and Rajasthan, 12 from Kerala, 9 seats from Telangana, 11 from Assam, 11 each from Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, 5 from Delhi, 2 from J&K, 3 from Uttarakhand, 2 from Arunachal Pradesh and 1 each from Goa, Tripura, Andaman & Nicobar and Daman & Diu.