The BJP on Wednesday released its second list of 72 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, repeating road transport minister Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur and fielding Union minister and Rajya Sabha MP Piyush Goyal from Mumbai North.

Three former chief ministers were also pitchforked into the electoral fray. Former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar was fielded from Karnal only a day after he stepped down.

Former Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai will contest from the Haveri seat and former Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat from Haridwar.

The BJP’s decision to field former chief ministers in Lok Sabha polls showed that the party was banking on old faces and not experimenting with next-generation leaders to achieve Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s target of winning at least 370 seats.

Repeating Gadkari from Nagpur also stood out given his record of stoking controversy by taking oblique digs at the top leadership.

It also showed that Modi was shying away from taking risks in this election.

Information and broadcasting minister Anurag Singh Thakur was repeated from the Hamirpur seat in Himachal Pradesh. Many in the party had felt that he had earned the wrath of the top leadership after the BJP lost most of the Assembly segments in his Lok Sabha seat in the state elections in 2022.

In the second list of candidates covering 10 states and one Union Territory, the BJP dropped some sitting MPs, mostly in Karnataka. Mysore MP Pratap Simha, who had facilitated the entry of two youths carrying smoke canisters in the Lok Sabha, was not selected. A Mysore royal family member, Yaduveer Kroshnadatta Wadiyar, was fielded in his place.

Another royal family member was also fielded from Tripura. Maharani Kriti Singh Debbarma, the elder sister of Tipra Motha founder and royal scion Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debbarma, will contest from the Tripura East seat reserved for the Scheduled Tribes.

The other major change was in Delhi. Of the total seven seats in the capital, six sitting members have been replaced with new faces. Contestants for five seats were announced in the first list. On Wednesday, two more names were announced — Harsh Malhotra was fielded from East Delhi in place of former cricketer Gautam Gambhir, who had excused himself from active politics citing cricketing responsibilities. In North West Delhi, popular folk singer Hans Raj Hans was replaced by Yogendra Chandoli, a new face.

Party leaders said the changes in Delhi were based on ground survey reports that flagged anger against many of the sitting MPs. The changes also reflected that the BJP perceived a challenge from the Congress-AAP alliance in Delhi.

Continuing the trend of getting Rajya Sabha MPs to face the voters directly, two more names were announced in the second list.

Goyal will make his debut as a Lok Sabha candidate from Mumbai North while the party’s media in-charge and Rajya Sabha MP, Anil Baluni, will contest from the Garhwal seat in his home state Uttarakhand.

The BJP had announced 195 candidates in the first list and now 72 more takes the total to 267.

In the first list too, four ministers who are Rajya Sabha members had been fielded to contest the Lok Sabha polls.

The states covered on Wednesday were Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Tripura and Uttarakhand.