LS Polls: New joinees in BJP's fifth list of 111 candidates

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday announced its fifth list of Lok Sabha contenders for the upcoming general elections, fielding among 111 candidates four Union ministers including Dharmendra Pradhan, former judge of Calcutta High Court Abhijit Gangopadhyay, actors Kangana Ranaut and Arun Govil, and industrialist and former Congress leader Navin Jindal. The 111 names announced cover 17 states and  includes all six slots from its quota in Andhra Pradesh, all 17 from Bihar, 21 from Odisha, and 19 from Bengal.Actor Arun Govil, who played Ram in popular TV serial Ramayan, has been fielded by the BJP from the Meerut Lok Sabha seat held.

The Central Election Committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party has decided on the following names for the upcoming General Elections to the Lok Sabha. Here is the fifth list. (2/3) pic.twitter.com/vA0hOQH4PV

— BJP (@BJP4India) March 24, 2024

The party has dropped Varun Gandhi, though his mother Maneka Gandhi has been fielded from Sultanpur. Varun Gandhi's seat, Pilibhit, has gone to former Congressman Jitin Prasada, who changed sides in the run-up to the election.The other key leaders who got the pink slip are Union ministers Ashwini Kumar Choubey and General VK Singh, Ashwani Choubey from Buxar in Bihar, and former Union minister Anant Kumar Hegde. Senior leader and Kerala BJP chief K Surendran will contest against Congress's Rahul Gandhi from Kerala's Wayanad.
Ranjit Chautala, the son of former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal, will contest from Hisar. Kangana Ranaut will contest her first election from Mandi in her home state Himachal Pradesh.
The BJP has now declared contenders for 402 constituencies. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target for the BJP to win at least 370 seats on its own in these Lok Sabha elections and more than 400 for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) it leads.
In Andhra Pradesh, the party fielded D Purandeswari — its first woman president in the state — from Rajahmundry, Kiran Kumar Reddy (a former Congress CM) from Rajampet and Kothapalli Geeta from Araku. Only six candidates have been named from the state.

The Central Election Committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party has decided on the following names for the upcoming General Elections to the Lok Sabha. Here is the fifth list. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/lKmJke6WOb

— BJP (@BJP4India) March 24, 2024

In Bihar, where the party is contesting 17 of the 40 seats on its own, it repeated ministers Giriraj Singh from Begusarai, Nityanand Rai from Ujiarpur and RK Singh from Arrah. Former minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will contest from Patna Sahib and Rajya Sabha MP Vivek Thakur was given a ticket to contest from Nawada. Mithlesh Tiwari will replace Ashwani Chaubey in Buxar, while spokesperson Rajeev Pratap Rudy was chosen to contest again from his seat in Saran. Former party president Sanjay Jaiswal was assigned to contest from Paschim Champaran.