Other important names on the list, bolder than the first in terms of dropping incumbents, including some prominent ones, include Karnataka cardiologist and former PM H D Deve Gowda son-in-law C N Manjunath from Bengaluru (Rural), party’s media head Anil Baluni who will make his debut at the cost of former Uttarakhand CM Tirath Singh Rawat in Pauri-Garhwal, and Pankaja Munde, who has come in place of her younger sibling Pritam in Maharashtra’s Beed.
Sadananda Gowda, former Karnataka CM and ex-Union minister, has been replaced by Union minister of state Shobha Karandlaje in Bangalore North. Former Karnataka BJP chief Nalin Kumar Kateel has been benched in Dakshin Kannada in favour of Brijesh Chouta.
Darshana Zardosh has been replaced by Mukeshbhai Chandrakant Dalal in Surat, making her the sole casualty among central ministers whose seats are on the list.
Karnataka accounted for the maximum number of incumbents benched, with the party dropping 10 in the list of 20 names announced on Wednesday. Maharashtra and Gujarat follow with seven and five, respectively.
In Delhi, Yogendra Chandaulia, a veteran who served as head of the standing council of the undivided Municipal Corporation of Delhi, has replaced Sufi singer Hans Raj Hans in Delhi North West (SC), while Harsh Malhotra, a senior face in the organisation, has been named for Delhi East from where ex-cricketer Gautam Gambhir had pulled out. With this, the party has dropped six of the seven winners of last time, leaving Manoj Tiwari in Delhi North East as the sole survivor.
Union ministers Rao Inderjit Singh and Krishan Pal Gurjar will seek re-election from Gurgaon and Faridabad respectively.
Goyal will contest from Mumbai North in place of sitting member Gopal Shetty, while Mihir Kotecha replaces Manoj Kotak in Mumbai North East. Other important names in the Maharashtra list include Raksha Nikhil Khadse who has been retained in Raver despite her father-in-law and party veteran Eknath Khadse’s switch to NCP. Former state chief and prominent OBC face Sudhir Mungantiwar has been fielded from Chandrapur, replacing another OBC veteran Hansraj Ahir, who lost to Congress last time.
Shifting of Pankaja Munde, daughter of late stalwart Gopinath Munde, is supposed to help the party deal with her sulks over denial of what she considered to be her due. Her defeat in the assembly polls and the rise of her estranged cousin Dhananjay Munde, who crossed over to NCP and is now a minister, appeared to have contributed to her disappointment. Importantly, the party is yet to clear the name of her maternal cousin, Poonam Mahajan, daughter of senior party leader Pramod Mahajan for Mumbai North Central.
The party is yet to announce names in states like Bihar and Odisha where it has to sort out issues with existing and potential allies.
In Haryana, Ashok Tanwar, a recent import from AAP who had won on a Congress ticket in 2009, has been fielded in place of Sunita Duggal in Sirsa (SC). The choice of Tanwar, along with that Banto Kataria, suggests the party is banking on the support of the Ravidas community which, with a 12% share of the population, accounts for the biggest chunk of the SC population in the state.
The party declared candidates for the remaining five Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh, including Vivek Bunty Sahu who will take on sitting Congress MP Nakul Nath in Chhindwara. Two sitting MPs from the state — Shankar Lalwani (Indore) and Anil Firoziya (Ujjain) — were renominated in the second list.
In Dadra and Nagar Haveli constituency, BJP gave ticket to sitting Shiv Sena MP Kalaben Delkar. She had won the by-election in 2021 on the ticket of then undivided Shiv Sena after her husband and MP Mohan Delkar died by suicide, defeating the BJP candidate.