After three sittings of the party’s Central Election Committee meeting over the past two weeks, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday released its first list of 182 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi will be re-contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Varanasi while the BJP president Amit Shah was announced to be the candidate from the Gandhinagar constituency, a bastion held by LK Advani, a BJP veteran who has held the position of deputy prime minister and home minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government and is a six-time Member of Parliament from the seat until the 2014 general elections.
The senior party leadership including other veteran leaders such as Murli Manohar Joshi, Shanta Kumar and Kalyan Mishra met Advani and conveyed the party’s decision before the list announcement.
The move to contest Shah in the upcoming polls could be a key factor as the leader has led the charge of the ruling party and has taken it to the new heights.
The general elections will be held in seven phases from April 11 to May 19 for 543 Lok Sabha seats across the country. Counting will be done on May 23.