BJP Lok Sabha candidates list: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday announced the first list of candidates for Lok Sabha elections 2024. According to the list, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest the upcoming elections from Varanasi.
The candidates' announcement comes days after the BJP held its central election committee meeting to finalise the candidates.
Along with PM Modi, the first list of of 195 candidates includes 34 ministers and two former chief ministers. The list also includes 28 women, 47 leaders under the age of 50, and 57 members of the OBC community. Of the 195, 51 come from the extremely important state of Uttar Pradesh, 20 from West Bengal, and five from Delhi.
BJP Lok Sabha candidates list: Key leaders
Amit Shah (Gandhinagar)
Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar)
Shivraj Chouhan (Vidisha)
Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna)
Kiren Rijiju (Arunachal West)
Sarbananda Sonowal (Dibrugarh)
Hema Malini (Mathura)
Arjun Meghwal (Bikaner)
Bhupendra Yadav (Alwar)
Om Birla (Kota)
Praveen Khandelwal ( Chandni Chowk)
Manoj Tiwari North East Delhi
Bansuri Swaraj ( New Delhi)
Kamalkit Sehrawat ( West Delhi)
Ramvir Bidhuri (South Delhi)
PM Modi to contest from Varanasi for 3rd time
The Varanasi constituency, which consists of five assembly seats, is home to one of India's holiest cities. Since 1957, the BJP has won seven elections and the Congress six. Since 1991, the BJP has maintained a near-perfect record, losing only once to the Congress in 2004.
The Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency, a BJP stronghold for decades, rose to prominence in 2014 when it hosted a high-stakes contest between the BJP's then-prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and relatively newcomer to politics, Arvind Kejriwal.
The battle ended with Narendra Modi winning by a margin of more than 3 lakh votes, but AAP candidate Kejriwal also received over 2 lakh votes.
In 2019, the Prime Minister chose the same seat. He defeated the Samajwadi Party's Shalini Yadav by more than 4.7 lakh votes.
Demography of Varanasi
In the Varanasi constituency, Hindus account for 75% of the population, Muslims 20%, and others 5%. Its population is 65% urban and 35% rural. The Scheduled Tribes make up 10.1% of the total population, while the Scheduled Castes make up 0.7%.
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