Modi to fight from Varanasi; 34 ministers in BJP's first list of 195 candidates

The ruling BJP on Saturday announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi will fight again from Varanasi in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as it named 34 Union ministers including Amit Shah Rajnath Singh and Smriti Irani in the first list of 195 candidatesThe list also included two former ministers as well as Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla who will fight again from Kota in Rajasthan and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from VidishaPrime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated all those who were nominated as party candidates Our Party has announced candidates for some of the seats and will be announcing the rest in the coming days I congratulate all those who have been nominated as our Partyrsquos candidates and wish them the very best We are going to the people on the basis of our track record of good governance and ensuring the fruits of progress reach the poorest of the poor I am sure that the 140 crore people of India will bless us yet again and give us even more strength in fulfilling their aspirations and creating a Viksit Bharat the Prime Minister said in a post on XUnion ministers fielded by the BJP through the first list also included Mansukh Mandaviya Jitendra Singh Sarbananda Sonowal Gajendra Shekhawat Bhupender Yadav G Kishan Reddy Kiren Rijiju Jyotiraditya Scindia Rajeev Chandrashekhar Arjun Ram Meghwal and Arjun MundaAnnouncing the list BJP National General Secretary Vinod Tawde said the party is confident that it would form the government for the third term under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a much bigger mandateHe also said that the party has been working on further expanding its footprint across various states and also to strengthen the National Democratic AllianceThe list included 28 women and 47 young leaders he saidThe announced names included those for 51 seats in Uttar Pradesh 20 in West Bengal and five in DelhiThe list saw major changes for Delhi with Ramesh Bidhuri Parvesh Verma Meenakshi Lekhi and Harsh Vardhan being dropped from their respective seats while Sadhvi Pragya Thakur was also dropped from her Bhopal seatBansuri Swaraj daughter of the late BJP leader Sushma Swaraj will make her poll debut from the New Delhi seat Kamaljeet Sehrawat will contest from the from West Delhi MLA Ramvir Singh Bidhuri from South Delhi Praveen Khadelwal from Chandni Chowk while Manoj Tiwari has been retained from the North East Delhi constituency Besides Lekhi John Barla is another Union minister who has been dropped from their seatBhojpuri singer and actor Pawan Singh has been fielded from Asansol in West BengalIn Uttar Pradesh the party has fielded former BSP MP Ritesh Pandey from Ambedkar Nagar Lok Sabha seat in UP while Hema Malini Ravi Kishan Ajay Mishra Teni Mahesh Sharma SPS Baghel and Sakshi Maharaj are among those being repeated from their seatsIn Jharkhand former Congress MP Geeta Koda has been fielded from Singhbhum ST reservedModi has set a target for the BJP to win at least 370 seats on its own in this Lok Sabha election and more than 400 for the NDAThe Election Commission is expected to announce the poll schedule later this month and the elections are likely to be held in AprilMayThe BJP had won 303 seats in 2019 polls but currently it has 290 members in Lok Sabha the number decreasing for various reasons including due to some MPs recently resigning after winning assembly pollsThe BJPs Central Election Committee CEC had met for more than five hours Thursday night and deliberated on names for their first listThe CEC members which included Prime Minister Narendra Modi partys national president J P Nadda and Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh had discussed the probables for states like Uttar Pradesh Madhya Pradesh Gujarat Rajasthan Assam Chhattisgarh Delhi Goa and Uttarakhand among others to finalise the nomineesBefore that Shah and Nadda hat met Modi at his residence to hold consultationsThe next CEC meeting is expected to be held next week to discuss further names