Until Sunday evening, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had released five lists of its candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, announcing its contestants on 398 seats. Of these, the BJP has not repeated 94 candidates or nearly a third of those who won in 2019.
Of the 398 seats so far, the BJP has fielded 66 women or almost 17 per cent of all the candidates it has announced. This is already more than the number of women the party fielded in the past three Lok Sabha elections. In 2009, 45 of the BJP’s 433 Lok Sabha candidates were women. In 2014, 38 of its 428 candidates were women. In 2019, there were 55 women among its 436 contestants.
In 2019, the BJP replaced 99 of its 268 sitting MPs (of the 282 seats it won in 2014, a few were lost in by-elections over the following five years). A similar number of sitting MPs are expected to be replaced for the 2024 elections, as the BJP is yet to announce candidates for several seats won in 2019.
The party has promised some of these seats to its new allies, such as the Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka and its allies, Jayant Chaudhary-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, in Uttar Pradesh.
Coalition with allies
However, the party is likely to drop its incumbent MPs in others. In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has announced candidates for 63 of the 80 seats. Of the remaining 17, at least half a dozen will go to its allies, including two to Apna Dal (Soneylal).
The BJP has yet to announce any candidates for the 13 seats in Punjab, where it is negotiating a seat-sharing arrangement with the Shiromani Akali Dal. Punjab will vote in the last phase of the Lok Sabha elections on June 1.
The BJP has declared only 23 candidates for the 48 seats of Maharashtra, where it is working out a seat-sharing formula with its allies, the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena. In 2019, the BJP contested 25 of the 48 seats, with the undivided Shiv Sena, under the leadership of Uddhav Thackeray, contesting the remaining 23.
In Karnataka, the BJP has announced 24 candidates. It is yet to announce its candidate for the Chitradurga seat, which its candidate Abbaiah Narayanaswamy, Union minister of state for social justice and empowerment, won in 2019. The party has also yet to announce candidates for Mandya, where it supported independent Sumalatha Ambarish in 2019, Hassan, which it lost to Janata Dal (Secular) and Kolar, held by the BJP’s S Muniswamy. The JD(S) is keen to contest the three seats.
Division of seats
The BJP has announced 11 candidates in Assam, leaving three for its allies, the Asom Gana Parishad and United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL).
It has only announced two candidates for the five Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir. That’s Jammu and Udhampur, which are its sitting seats, where it has again fielded its MPs Jugal Kishore Sharma and Jitendra Singh respectively.
The BJP has yet to announce candidates for three seats each in Rajasthan, Odisha, and Bengal. It still needs to announce its candidate for the Chandigarh seat, which actor Kirron Kher has won on the BJP ticket in 2014 and 2019. The party has said it will support the NCP candidate in Lakshadweep. The NCP has a sitting MP from the seat.
The BJP has announced support for the candidates of its ally, the National People’s Party, on Meghalaya’s Tura and Shillong seats. It will support the Naga Peoples’ Front candidate for the Outer Manipur seat and the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) for the lone seat in Nagaland.
In the fifth list of 111 candidates that the BJP released on Sunday evening, it dropped 23 of its sitting MPs, including Meerut MP Rajendra Agarwal, who made way for actor Arun Govil, Ghaziabad MP former Army chief VK Singh, Badayun MP Sanghamitra Maurya and others.
First Published: Mar 25 2024 | 8:47 PM IST