BJP's 1st list of LS candidates: Of continuity and winnability

The party is refielding 108 MPs in the list of 195 but there are a few who have been denied ticket. ARCHIS MOHAN explains what has changed and what hasn't

- ARCHIS MOHAN

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced its candidates for 195 Lok Sabha constituencies across 16 states and Union Territories, including 151 seats that the party had previously won in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The party's focus is on "winnability", and as such, it has fielded 108 of its sitting MPs.

In 2019, the BJP had dropped 99 of its 268 sitting MPs (of the 282 seats it won in 2014, a few were lost in by-elections over the following five years).

The BJP has also accommodated recent imports from other parties due to the "winnability" factor. They include Kripashankar Singh, a former Congress leader from Maharashtra, who has been fielded from Uttar Pradesh's Jaunpur.Other notable names include Geeta Kora (Singhbhum, from the Congress), Jyoti Mirdha (Nagaur, from the Congress), Ritesh Pandey (Ambedkar Nagar, from the Bahujan Samaj Party), and BB Patil (Zaheerabad; from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi).

Kripashankar joined the BJP in July 2021, at a time when central probe agencies were investigating a case of disproportionate assets against him. Kora, the wife of former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Kora, Pandey, and others have joined the party recently.