2019 Lok Sabha elections: BJP announces first list of candidates, PM Modi to contest from Varanasi

BJP's first candidate list for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls was out on Thursday. PM Narendra Modi is being fielded from Varanasi and BJP president Amit Shah from Gandhinagar in place of party veteran LK Advani. The first list has a total of 184 candidates.

Home minister Rajnath Singh will fight the polls from Lucknow. Nagpur will be the constituency of Nitin Gadkari. They had won in the last general elections from these constituencies.

Kiren Rijiju will again represent Arunachal West. V K Singh and Mahesh Shamra have been given Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida), respectively.


Smriti Irani will take on Congress president Rahul Gandhi in his pocket borough Amethi.

BJP's list includes candidates from several states — Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Prdesh, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Arunachal, Tripura.

The BJP has finalised names of all 17 party candidates from Bihar and sent the list to the state unit which will announce it jointly with allies.

Lok Sabha elections will begin on April 11 and continue for over a month till May 19 across seven phases, followed by counting of votes on May 23.

The polling will be held on April 11, April 18, April 23, April 29, May 6, May 12 and May 19 for 543 Lok Sabha seats across the country in which nearly 90 crore voters would be eligible to vote.

(with PTI inputs)

Here is the complete first list: