Narendra Modi to fight from Varanasi, Gandhinagar goes to Shah

Narendra Modi being welcomed by Amit Shah as he arrives to attend the BJP CEC meeting for the Lok Sabha elections, in New Delhi. Pic/PTI

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will fight to retain his Varanasi seat while BJP President Amit Shah will make his debut in Lok Sabha polls from Gandhinagar, BJP leader J P Nadda announced.

The Gandhinagar seat is currently held by veteran BJP leader L K Advani, who has been winning the seat consecutively from 1998. Among the prominent leaders announced in BJP's first list, which had 184 names across 20 states, were Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, who will contest again from Lucknow, Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur, Gen. V K Singh (retd) from Ghaziabad, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (Jaipur Rural), Satyapal Singh (Baghpat), and D V Sadananda Gowda (Bengaluru North). All are sitting MPs from these seats.

Union Minister Smriti Irani will again face Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Amethi, while film actress-turned politician Hema Malini will contest from her Mathura seat. Union Minister Babul Supriyo will fight to retain his Asanol seat, where he will face Trinamool Congress's Moon Moon Sen. The BJP has also fielded Bengali film actress Locket Chatterjee from Hooghly. BJP's Kerala strongman Kummanam Rajasekharan, who recently quit as Mizoram Governor, will fight against Congress's Shashi Tharoor in Thiruvanthapuram, while Union Minister K J Alphons will contest from Ernakulam.

184
No. of names in BJP's first list

20
No. of states from where names have been fielded

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