Shah to replace Advani in Gandhinagar, Modi to try luck in Varanasi again

The BJP, on March 21, fielded Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi constituency and its president Amit Shah in Gandhinagar in place of LK Advani as it announced its first list of 184 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections.

Senior party leader JP Nadda told a press conference that the party also decided to field Home Minister Rajnath Singh in Lucknow and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari in Nagpur. Both leaders had won these seats in the previous general election. Union Minister Smriti Irani has been re-nominated in Amethi  where she will take on Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

Union minister Kiren Rijiju is set to fight in Arunachal Pradesh East. The BJP has also re-nominated union ministers VK Singh and Mahesh Shamra in Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida), respectively.

The BJP announced its candidates for many states including Uttar Prdesh, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura. The BJP has finalised the names of all 17 party candidates for Bihar and sent it to the state unit, which will announce it jointly with allies, Nadda said.

Lok Sabha elections will begin on April 11 and continue for over a month till May 19 across seven phases, followed by counting of votes on May 23. The polling will be held on April 11, April 18, April 23, April 29, May 6, May 12 and May 19 for 543 Lok Sabha seats across the country in which nearly 90 crore voters would be eligible to vote.