NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday released a list of 18 candidates for the Lok Sabha election, bringing the total number of nominees finalised by its central election committee to 37. The next list is expected by this month end.The Monday’s list includes six candidates from Kerala, four from Jharkhand, three from Himachal Pradesh, two from Tripura and one each from Manipur, Chandigarh and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
Senior party leader and former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha will contest from his old constituency Hazaribagh in Jharkhand. At present, he is a member of the Rajya Sabha, having lost the 2004 election when the BJP won only one seat from Jharkhand – Kodarma by Babulal Marandi.
The other three candidates from Jharkhand are: Pashupatinath Singh (Dhanbad), Ramtahal Choudhary (Ranchi) and Karia Munda from the reserved tribal seat of Khunti.
Mr. Pashupatinath Singh was the party’s State unit president. Following the declaration of his candidature, he resigned from that position and party president Rajnath Singh replaced him with Raghuvir Das.
The six Kerala candidates are: K. Surendran from Kasaragod, K.P. Sreeshan from Vadakara; V. Muraleedharan (Kozhikode), K. Janachandran Master (Ponnani) C.K. Padmanabhan (Palakkad) and A.N. Radhakrishnan from Ernakulam.
For the Chandigarh seat, the nominee will be veteran Satya Pal Jain. The Inner Manipur seat will be contested by the former Chief Minister, Nipamacha Singh. Natubhai Gomanbhai Patel is the BJP candidate from Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
