BJP 5th List Of Candidates: Varun Gandhi Denied Ticket, Kangana To Contest From Mandi

The BJP on Sunday released its fifth list of 111 candidates from Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim, Telangana, UP, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, and other states.

The major highlight of the list is that the BJP has denied the ticket to Pilibhit sitting MP Varun Gandhi while it has fielded Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut from the Mandi constituency in Himachal Pradesh.

There have been speculations about BJP dropping Varun Gandhi as he has criticised the Narendra Modi government on several occasions in the past.

Pilibhit, which will go to polls on April 19, seat has been represented by Varun Gandhi's mother Maneka Gandhi or him for over two decades. He is being replaced by Jithin Prasada.

Gandhi had been attacking his own party government policies in the past few years. Recently he shared dais with the BJP leaders and also praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, his mother Maneka Gandhi will contest from Sultanpur.

On the other hand, Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut, who has been a vociferous supporter of the Modi government, will be making her political debut. It has to be noted that she has openly confessed her wish to contest in polls if the saffron party gives her a ticket.

The party has also nominated veteran actor Arun Govil, renowned for portraying the character of Lord Ram in Ramanand Sagar's 'Ramayan', to contest from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh.

Former Congress MP Naveen Jindal, who has joined the BJP, has been chosen to run from Kurukshetra in Haryana.

Naveen Jindal, an industrialist, previously represented the Kurukshetra constituency in the Lok Sabha for two terms (2004-2014). Despite his past tenure, he faced defeat to the Bharatiya Janata Party's Raj Kumar Saini in the 2014 national elections and was not nominated by the Congress in 2019.

Check out the full list of contests

Other Highlights:

• The BJP has dropped Union ministers Ashwini Kumar Choubey and V K Singh.
• Kerala BJP president K Surendra will contest from Wayanad against former Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
• The BJP has fielded Rekha Patra, who party leaders said is one of the Sadeshkhali victims, from West Bengal's Basirhat constituency in a bid to corner the state's ruling Trinamool Congress.
• The BJP named candidates for all 17 seats it is contesting in Bihar, renominating Union minister Giriraj Singh from Begusarai and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad from Patna Sahib.
• Union ministers R K Singh and Nityanand Rai have also been fielded from their current seats, while in Uttar Pradesh the ruling party named 13 more candidates.
• With this list of 111 candidates, the ruling party has named 398 nominees, excluding the four who withdrew after their names created controversy, for the elections to the 543-member Lok Sabha.
• Sita Soren, the sister-in-law of former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, is the BJP's candidate from Dumka. She had quit the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha a few days ago.
• Former Karnataka chief minister Jagadish Shettar, who snapped his long ties with the BJP to join the Congress last year before returning to its fold months later, will contest from Belgaum.
• The party has named 19 more candidates from West Bengal, including former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay from Tamluk. It has shifted Dilip Ghosh, the MP from Medinipur, to Bardhaman-Durgapur, dropping the incumbent S S Ahluwalia.
• It named seven candidates from Rajasthan, four each from Haryana, Karnataka and Kerala, 18 from Odisha, and three each from Maharashtra and Jharkhand among other states.
• Its Andhra Pradesh president D Purandeswari will contest from Rajahmundry and former chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy from Rajampet as the party named its picks for all the six Lok Sabha seats in the state it is contesting in alliance with the TDP and the Jana Sena.
• BJP vice president Baijayant Panda will contest from Kendrapara, a constituency he has represented in Lok Sabha as a BJD member twice.