PM Narendra Modi at council of ministers meeting (Image credit PMO)
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, March 13: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday released the second list of the party for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari along with his Cabinet colleague Piyush Goyal figured in the list of 72 candidates.
The BJP in the first two lists has so far announced candidates for 295 Lok Sabha seats. The BJP has stayed on course to drop selective candidates, and also nudge the party’s long-standing Rajya Sabha leaders to jump in the poll fray.
Goyal is the leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha. The BJP has fielded him from the Mumbai North parliamentary constituency. The saffron outfit has denied the nomination for the sitting MP Gopal Shetty. The announcement has led to strong protests by the followers of Shetty against the candidature of Goyal who has never contested any direct election.
The notable feature in the BJP lists of candidates is Modi shifting the regional satraps to the national political scene. Following the footsteps of former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the BJP has so far fielded more of his counterparts in various states.
Former Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar will contest the Lok Sabha elections from the Karnal parliamentary constituency. He was dropped as the chief minister of Haryana in a dramatic fashion with the two central observers reportedly catching him unaware to summon the state legislature party meeting to pick his successor.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai also joins his peers in the electoral fray. After losing the Karnataka Assembly election, the BJP had pushed Bommai to the wall by not nominating him as the leader of the Opposition in the Karnataka Assembly. Bommai will contest the poll from his stronghold Haveri Lok Sabha seat.
Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat also joins the poll fray with the BJP fielding him from the Hardwar parliamentary constituency. Former Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Deb has already been fielding in the Lok Sabha elections.
The BJP insiders argue that the former chief ministers are potential Cabinet ministers in the event Modi wins the third straight mandate for the party. They also point out that Modi had wanted the BJP’s regional satraps who were holding out as chief ministers to move to the national politics and join him as Cabinet colleagues after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. But he was not able to execute his plan because of several reasons.
Modi has widely been criticized for heading a council of ministers which has been without the leading lights of the BJP in his second term. There are indications also that several of the incumbent ministers may miss out from their presence in the corridors of power if Modi forms another government. Barring Deb, all other former CMs from the BJP ranks are likely to take key Cabinet portfolios.
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