Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal and Anurag Singh Thakur, and three former chief ministers, including Haryana's Manohar Lal Khattar, figured in the BJP's second list of 72 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections announced on Wednesday. The ruling party dropped former Union ministers Sadananda Gowda and Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' from their seats.
Khattar and Goyal will be making their Lok Sabha poll debut from Karnal in Haryana and Mumbai North respectively. Former Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai will contest from Haveri and former Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat from Haridwar.
BJP chief spokesperson Anil Baluni will also be fighting his first Lok Sabha poll as the BJP fielded him from Garhwal, replacing former Uttarakhand chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat.
Gadkari and Thakur will seek re-election from Nagpur in Maharashtra and Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh respectively.
In the Beed constituency in Maharashtra, Pankaja Munde has replaced her sister and incumbent MP Pritam Munde.
With the second list, the BJP has announced the names of 265 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections due in April-May.
On March 2, the party released its first list of candidates for 195 Lok Sabha seats, but two of them -- Bhojpuri singer-actor Pawan Singh and Upendra Rawat -- withdrew after their nominations sparked controversies.
Of the 72 seats for which the party announced its candidates on Wednesday, 20 each were from Maharashtra and Karnataka, seven from Gujarat, six each from Haryana and Telangana, five from Madhya Pradesh, two each from Delhi, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, and one each from Tripura, and Dadar & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu.
The BJP's second list includes 10 women candidates.
In Delhi, the BJP has fielded two new candidates -- Harsh Malhotra from East Delhi and Yogendra Chandolia from North West Delhi -- dropping the party's sitting MPs Gautam Gambhir and Hans Raj Hans.
With this, the BJP has named candidates for all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, dropping six incumbents.
Tejasvi Surya, the BJP youth wing president, will contest again from Bangalore South while Union minister Shobha Karandlaje has been shifted from her Udupi Chikmagalur seat to Bangalore North, represented by former Union minister and Karnataka chief minister Gowda in the outgoing Lok Sabha.
Yaduveer Krishnadatta Wadiyar of the erstwhile Mysore royal family replaces Pratap Simha, who was recently in a row for recommending passes to two persons who breached Parliament's security, as the BJP candidate in the Mysore seat.
Former Karnataka BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel has been dropped from Dakshina Kannada in favour of Brijesh Chowta, who has served in the Army.
In Karnataka, Union minister Pralhad Joshi will fight from Dharwad while former chief minister BS Yediyurappa's son B Y Raghwendra will contest from Shimoga again.
Union minister Darshana Jardosh has been dropped from her Surat seat, with the BJP repeating only two of the seven incumbent MPs from Gujarat in the second list.
Several Telangana leaders who quit other parties, mainly BRS, figure in the BJP's second list.
In the Tripura East seat, the BJP fielded Maharani Kriti Singh Debbarma, sister of Pradyot Debbarma, the Tipra Motha chief and a scion of the erstwhile Tripura royal family.
Union minister Bharati Pravin Pawar will join the fray from Maharashtra's Dindori Lok Sabha seat again.
Ashok Tanwar, who recently joined the BJP after having a stint with several other parties including the Congress, TMC and the Aam Aadmi Party, replaces sitting MP Sunita Duggal in Sirsa in Haryana, while Union ministers Rao Inderjit Singh and Krishan Pal Gurjar will seek re-election from Gurgaon and Faridabad respectively.
In the first list, the ruling party had announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi would contest from Varanasi for a third time.
It had also named 34 Union ministers, including heavyweights like Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh from their current Gandhinagar and Lucknow seats respectively, in the first list.
Two former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Biplab Kumar Deb -- also figured in the first list which did not have many surprise omissions.
