BJP's first list of Lok Sabha poll candidates in 10 quick facts

BJP drops 33 sitting MPs in first list of candidates for LS Polls

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unveiled its first list of 195 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on March 2. Representing Varanasi once again, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest the 2024 general elections as he looks to come back for a third term with a resounding victory.

Here are 10 things you need to know about BJP's first list of candidates:

1. Current members of parliament, including Union Minister Meenakshi Lekhi (New Delhi), former Union Minister Harsh Vardhan (Chandni Chowk), Ramesh Bidhuri (South Delhi), and Pravesh Vema (West Delhi), are not part of the first list.
2. Bansuri Swaraj, the daughter of former external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, is set to make her poll debut. The Bharatiya Janata Party said that  Swaraj will run for the Lok Sabha seat from New Delhi.
3. There are 57 OBC candidates, 27 SC candidates, and 28 women on the list, which covers 18 states and Union territories. Additionally, there are 47 applicants under the age of 50.
4. BJP has once again fielded actress Hema Malini from the Mathura seat. In addition to Hema Malini, the saffron party has chosen to provide tickets to several celebrities including Pawan Singh, an actor and  Bhojpuri singer, who has been nominated from Asansol in West Bengal, and Ravi Kishan, who is a repeat candidate from Gorakhpur.
5. Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Shivraj Singh Chouhan are set to make their Lok Sabha debut. A three-time member of the Rajya Sabha, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar was fielded by the BJP as its candidate from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
6. This would be the third time that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is running from Varanasi. He began serving as the constituency's representative in 2014. Ten years before that, in his first election, Modi had beaten Ajay Rai of the Congress and Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party.
7.  Several union ministers have been fielded by the BJP for the upcoming LS polls. Rajnath Singh, the defense minister, will fight the polls from his home constituency in Lucknow. Amit Shah, the Union home minister, will contest from Gandhinagar.
8. While there was a shift in the candidates for Delhi, the 51 Uttar Pradesh candidates that the BJP had nominated included 46 incumbent members of parliament (MP). Though the final 29 names will appear in future lists, the initial UP list makes it abundantly evident that the BJP is unwilling to take chances in the politically significant Hindi heartland state, which sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha.
9. Smriti Irani, the Union minister for women and child welfare, has been fielded from Amethi, the former Gandhi family bastion which she eroded in 2019 by defeating the then Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
10. Despite the BJP's surprising win in Madhya Pradesh last year, Shivraj Singh Chouhan was not appointed as the state's chief minister. Based on his candidature in the Lok Sabha polls from Vidisha, it appears that he is bound for a national position.