The BJP has released its second list of 72 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, fielding Union minister Anurag Thakur from Himachal Pradesh's Hamirpur, former Karnataka CM Basavaraj Bommai from Haveri, BJP MP Tejasvi Surya from Bangalore South, Union minister Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur.
Union Minister Piyush Goyal is set to make his Lok Sabha poll debut from Mumbai North, according to the list.
The saffron party has also fielded former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar from Karnal. There was a strong speculation that BJP may field Khattar in the Lok Sabha polls after he resigned as the chief minister of Haryana earlier this week.
Other prominent names in the list included Ashok Tanwar from Sirsa, Banto Kataria from Ambala, Dharamabir Singh from Bhiwani-Mahendragarh, Rao Inderjit Singh Yadav from Gurugram and Krishan Pal Gurjar from Faridabad.
Notably, BJP has dropped its Delhi MP Hans Raj Hans from the Northwest Delhi seat.
With the second list, BJP has now declared 267 names for the upcoming general election.
On March 2, the BJP had released its first list of 195 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, fielding Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi, home minister Amit Shah from Gandhinagar and defence minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow.
Other party heavyweights in the first list include Smriti Irani, who eroded the Gandhi family bastion of Amethi in the last Lok Sabha polls, defeating the then Congress president Rahul Gandhi. Bhupendra Yadav, another senior BJP leader and key strategist, has been fielded from Alwar in Rajasthan.
Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, whose BJP switch in mid-2020 led to the downfall of the then Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, has been fielded from the state's Guna constituency. He is currently a Rajya Sabha MP.
Arjun Ram Meghwal, the Union law minister, has been named as the candidate from Bikaner, whereas, Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat will fight from his home constituency of Jodhpur. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla also featured in the first BJP list, as the party has retained him as the candidate from Kota.
The release of the BJP's second list comes ahead of the announcement of poll dates by the Election Commission. The Opposition INDIA bloc, led by the Congress, is yet to finalise the seat-sharing strategy in several states.
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