The BJP's first list of candidates has a Muslim candidate from Kerala. It has a few Big Picture Missives.
In New Delhi, the party nominee will be Bansuri Swaraj, daughter of former popular party leader Sushma Swaraj.
Eventually, Ms Bansuri could emerge as BJP's new face in faction-ridden unit in the national capital -- where the saffron party was strong right from the beginning.
She is an advocate with the Supreme Court of India and has over 15 years of experience in the legal profession. Her dad, Swaraj Kaushal is also a senior counsel and was Mizoram Governor. She replaces sitting MP Meenakshi Lekhi, MoS External Affairs and Cultural Affairs.
Ms Lekhi is also a lawyer and speculation is rife that she may be asked to contest from Chandigarh. Late Sushma Swaraj was incidentally was the last BJP chief minister in Delhi. The 40-year-old Bansuri is also quite an articulate. She studied Law at Oxford University and also studied English literature at the University of Warwick, England.
Bansuri also served as the additional advocate general for Haryana and has been in her private practice since 2007. Her name was on the top of the list prepared by the election committee of Delhi BJP and the name was retained by the party's CEC as well.
Second important message from the first list of BJP candidates is the party leadership's efforts to build up the party as a suitable outfit in West Bengal and Kerala from electoral point of view. In Kerala, displaying higher ambitions, the party has fielded three prominent faces -
Rajeev Chandrasekhar and V Muraleedharan -- both Union Ministers of State. Chandrashekkhar (MoS - IT) will take on in all probability Congress leader Shashi Tharoor from Thiruvananthapuram.
Suresh Gopi is also an important personality and he has been fielded from Thrissur. Suresh Gopi is an actor, politician, playback singer and television presenter.
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| Suresh Gopi |
He works predominantly in Malayalam cinema and has also appeared in some Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Bollywood films.
Tharoor has been winning the Thiruvananthapuram seat since 2009 for three consecutive terms. In 2019, the BJP candidate was Kummanam Rajasekharan, who had polled 316142 votes as against 416, 131 by Congress candidate Tharoor.
CPI nominee C. Divakaran had also polled 2,58,556 finishing at number 3.
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| MoS Rajeev |
Abdul Salam is BJP candidate from Malappuram.
MoS External Affairs V Muraleedharan has been fielded from Attingal. The third prominent face in BJP's list for Kerala is Anil Antony, who will be sweating it out from Pathanamthitta.
Interestingly, Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha constituency, where the famed Hindu temple of Sabarimala is located, will, in all likelihood, witness a triangular fight amongst three Christian candidates representing the three political fronts.
Anil Antony is son of former Congress veteran A K Antony. The other two Christian candidates probably in the contest will be Congress party's Lok Sabha member Anto Antony who has been representing this constituency since its inception in 2009.
The third is none other than CPI-M veteran and two time former Finance Minister Thomas Isaac, who for the past six months has been stay put in the constituency taking part and holding numerous seminars and meetings, reports say.
In 2019, the BJP nominee K. Surendran had polled 2,97,396 votes making it about 13.50 per cent.
Congress nominee Anto Antony had won the seat polling 380,927 votes and CPI-M nominee Veena George had polled 3,36,684 making it the number 2.
In West Bengal, the BJP has further ambitious plans. It had won 18 seats out of 42 in 2019 and this time the target is 35 and if PM Narendra Modi's rhetoric is to be given credence, more the merrier.
The saffron party is on an upsurge in Bengal no doubt especially close on the heels of developments related to Sandeshkhali and the very credibility of the Mamata Banerjee government. Among the 20 candidates announced in the first list, there are three sitting MLAs. And all of them have been fielded with specific purpose and reasons.
The party leadership has shown faith on Manoj Tigga, MLA from Madarihat and replaces Union MoS Minority Affairs John Barla.
Tigga defeated his nearest rival Padam Lama of All India Trinamool Congress by 22,308 votes in 2021 assembly polls. Dropping Barla appears a surprise as he had polled more than 50 per cent votes in 2019 polls.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Catholic John Barla humbled Dasrath Tirkey of Trinamool Congress by more than two lakh votes from Alipurduar, a key seat in north Bengal.
PM Modi's Council of Ministers from May 2019 did not have any Christian leader and John Barla's induction in 2021 had fulfilled the gap. But he has been dropped.
Actor Hiranmay Chattopadhyay will be BJP candidate from Ghatal where the sitting MP is TMC's actpr-turned-neta Dev. However, it remains to be seen whether Dev will be renominated from the constituency by Mamata again.
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| Hiranmay |
Hiran Chatterjee is a Tollywood film actor and a Member of West Bengal Legislative Assembly from Kharagpur Sadar.
He has been also working with the non-governmental organisation, Voice of World, which provides aid to visually and physically challenged street children.
The BJP has also fielded Sreerupa Mitra Chowdhury from Maldaha Dakshin.
Popularly known as 'Nirbhaya Didi', she is MLA from English Bazar. She is also a social worker, women's rights activist and former journalist.
BJP also nominated LoP, West Bengal, Suvendu Adhikari's 's brother Soumendu Adhikari from Kanthi seat held by their father and former Union Minister Sishir Adhikari.
Among BJP candidates from West Bengal also is Anirban Ganguly, the president of Syama Prasad Mookerjee Foundation. He is BJP's nominee from the prestigious Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency in Kolkata.
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