27 Females, 47 Young Leaders: Key takeaways from BJP's First List of Candidates for Lok Sabha Polls

The BJP has announced its first list of 195 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest from Varanasi while as Amit Shah will fight from Gujarat's Gandhinagar.

New Delhi: The BJP released its first list of 195 candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls on Saturday. The first list covers candidates for 16 states and two Union Territories (UT) and comes days after a marathon meeting of the party’s Central Election Committee (CEC) that was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Here are the top 10 takeaways from the maiden list:

1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will fight the Lok Sabha elections from Varanasi. The list includes 34 Union ministers, two former ministers, and Lok Sabha speaker.
2. As far as women and youth are concerned, the list includes 27 female candidates and 47 young leaders.
3. In the first list, BJP announces candidates for 51 Lok Sabha seats in UP, 20 in West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh 24, Gujarat 15, Rajasthan 15, Kerala 12, Telangana 09, Assam 11, Jharkhand 11, Chhattisgarh 11, Delhi 05, Jammu & Kashmir 2, Uttarakhand 3, Arunachal Pradesh 2, Goa 1, Tripura 1, Andaman Nicobar 1, Daman and Diu 1.
4. BJP repeats Kiren Rijiju, Tapir Gao from two Arunachal Pradesh seats for Lok Sabha polls. Party fields Bansuri Swaraj from New Delhi seat, Kamaljit Sehrawat from West Delhi, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri from South Delhi.
5. BJP has fielded Praveen Khadelwal from Chandni Chowk seat, Manoj Tiwari from North East Delhi.
6. Home Minister Amit Shah will contest from Gandhinagar, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya from Porbandar, Sarbananda Sonowal from Dibrugarh.
7. Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia to fight from Guna in Madhya Pradesh, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow, and Women & Child Development Minister Smriti Irani from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.
8. Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav to fight Lok Sabha election from Alwar in Rajasthan.
9. Union Minister V Muralidharan to contest from Attingal & Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar to contest from Thiruvananthapuram. BJP leader Alok Sharma to contest from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh.
10. Ramesh Bidhuri, Parvesh Verma, Meenakshi Lekhi, Harsh Vardhan dropped from Delhi LS seats; Sadhvi Pragya Thakur dropped from Bhopal.