The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday released its fifth and final list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections on Sunday, naming a total of 111 contenders.
Among the notable nominations are Giriraj Singh for Bihar’s Begusarai constituency, Nityanand Rai for Ujiarpur, Ravi Shankar Prasad for Patna Sahib, Sambit Patra from Puri, and Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut from Mandi in Himachal Pradesh.
In Telangana, the party has fielded Aroori Ramesh from Warangal (SC) and Tandra Vinod Rao from Khammam.
Newcomer Naveen Jindal will vie for the seat in Haryana’s Kurukshetra, while Sita Soren has been named the candidate for Dumka in Jharkhand. Jagadish Shettar is set to contest from Belgaum.
Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan will contest from Sambalpur and the party’s spokesperson Sambit Patra will try his luck from Puri once again after losing out in a close contest in 2019.
The party fielded Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur, while Uttar Pradesh minister Jitin Prasada has replaced Varun Gandhi in Pilibhit. Sita Soren will fight from Dumka (Jharkhand).
The party has dropped ex-Union minister Anant Kumar Hegde from Uttara Kannada constituency.
Actor Arun Govil, who played Ram in popular TV serial Ramayan, has been fielded by the BJP from the Meerut Lok Sabha seat.
The seven-phase parliamentary elections will begin on April 19 and conclude on June 1. Vote counting is slated for June 4.
(With inputs from agencies)
