BJP announces 51 candidates for Uttar Pradesh

PM Modi, Rajnath Singh, and Smriti Irani among BJP candidates for UP Lok Sabha seats; Varanasi, Lucknow, and Amethi contested.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is among the 51 Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha candidates announced by the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday. Mr. Modi will be reprising his candidature from Varanasi, while Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will be the party’s nominee from Lucknow. Minister of Women and Child Development Smriti Irani will again contest from Amethi once again.

Of the 51 seats declared, only four witnessed the BJP change its 2019 candidates list. On Nagina, a Scheduled Caste seat, the BJP had named Om Kumar as its candidate, while denying Yashwant Singh, who contested from the constituency in 2019. Likewise, the candidate is changed from the Shravasti Parliamentary constituency with Saket Mishra getting a ticket in stead of Daddan Mishra, who failed to win the seat in 2019.

Another surprise was the Janupur Lok Sabha seat where Mumbai-based Kripashankar Singh has been given a ticket instead of Krishna Pratap. Mr. Singh is a former Maharashtra Minister in the Congress government and had served as an MLA in the Maharashtra Assembly. Union Minister of State (Home) Ajay Mishra Teni, whose son is accused of mowing down four farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri, will be contesting from the Kheri constituency once again. In 2019, he won the seat by over two lakh votes. In Rampur, Ghanshayam Lodhi, who won the 2022 byelection has retained his candidature. In 2019, actress-turned-politician Jaya Prada was the BJP candidate from Rampur.

With 80 Lok Sabha seats, U.P. is India’s most politically crucial State.

BJP MP from Pilibhit, Varun Gandhi, and his mother, and Sultanpur Lok Sabha member, Maneka Gandhi, have been kept out of the first list released on Saturday.

Speculations abound that this might be in light of Mr. Gandhi’s recent public positions which contradict the party’s official position on different issues. After the 2019 Parliamentary election, the BJP government kept the mother-son duo out of the Cabinet. However, Ms. Gandhi, an eight-time Lok Sabha MP, who won from Sultanpur, served as Minister of Women and Child Development in the first term of the PM Modi-led NDA government.