BJP fields Sambhit Patra from Puri, Himanta not to contest

NEW DELHI: BJP declared its second list of candidates comprising of 36 names for the Lok Sabha elections on Friday night. The party has decided to field spokesperson Sambhit Patra from Puri and Odisha state unit president Basant Kumar Panda from Kalahandi.

BJP leader JP Nadda announced the names of candidates for seats from Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra and one seat each from Assam and Meghalaya. Patra will be the candidate from Puri seat in Odisha. Earlier there was speculation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi may contest from Puri along with Varanasi. However, the party brass had clarified sometime back that there is no such plan.

Pallab Lochan Das will be the BJP candidate from Tezpur seat in Assam. Himanta Biswa Sarma, Finance and Education Minister in Assam, was expected to contest from this seat but the central leadership took the decision that he is needed there for handling the north-east state as head of NEDA. There are 25 Lok Sabha seats in the North-East, including Assam.


Sanbor Shullai, an MLA, has been fielded from Shillong (ST) seat in Meghalaya.

In the other Odisha seats, Suresh Pujari will be the candidate from Bargarh, Nitesh Ganga Deb from Sambalpur and Jayaram Pangi from Koraput (ST).

In Maharashtra, Kanchan Rahul Kul will contest against Supriya Sule (NCP) in Baramati. Other candidates are: Smita Wagh (Jalgaon), Pratap Chikkalikar (Nanded), Bharati Pawar (Dindori-ST), Girish Bapat (Pune) and Jaysidhewar Swami (Solapur-SC).

The party has also announced the names of 23 candidates from Andhra Pradesh.

BJP also declared candidates for 51 Assembly seats of Andhra Pradesh, 22 from Odisha, and a by-election in Meghalaya.