New Delhi: The BJP on Saturday released its first list of 195 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections 2024, featuring famous Bhojpuri actor Pawan Singh along with several other prominent faces including Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the list. Pawan Singh has been fielded by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from the Asansol Lok Sabha constituency in West Bengal. Singh, who has a massive fan base in the states like Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, is also a well known film star in West Bengal.

It is being said that fielding Pawan Singh from West Bengal is a smart move by the saffron party to crack a big vote bank in the state ruled by Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress Party.

With Bhojpuri actor Pawan Singh in the frame as a candidate from West Bengal, the BJP appears to be eyeing on the big Purvanchali vote bank, spread across various states including West Bengal.

BJP released 1st list of 195 candidates for Lok Sabha polls

The political experts called it BJP’s smart move ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, saying that with Bhojpuri actor Pawan Singh in the list, the ruling party at the centre can easily manage to penetrate in the vote bank of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Samajwadi Party (SP).

Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party is going all out to secure the target of 370 given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Not only this, the BJP and its allies are leaving no stone unturned to attain the 400 mark for the NDA.

Apart from Pawan Singh, Bansuri Swaraj, daughter of late BJP leader and former Minister of External Affairs (MEA) minister Sushma Swaraj, has been fielded from the New Delhi Lok Sabha seat. 

The BJP has finalised first list of 195 Lok Sabha candidates for the parliamentary elections, after several rounds of meetings and brainstorming by the party's top brass at the party’s headquarters in Delhi and at PM Modi's residence. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP President JP Nadda, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and other party’s top leadership gathered at the BJP’s Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday to take a final call on the first list of candidates.

Prime Minister Modi to contest from Varanasi

This is the first list for the upcoming biggest battle which are likely to be held in April and May.

The list prioritised high-profile leaders including PM Modi himself from Varanasi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah from Gandhinagar in Gujarat, and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow.

Leaders from various states, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Gujarat's Bhupendra Patel, Madhya Pradesh's Mohan Yadav, Chhattisgarh's Vishnu Deo Sai, Uttarakhand's Pushkar Singh Dhami and Goa's Pramod Sawant, were among those who arrived at the BJP headquarters for the meeting.

A large number of those seats that the BJP has targeted for improving its prospects after unsuccessfully contesting those in 2019 also figured in the initial lists of candidates, following the template of recent Assembly polls, sources said.

Many Union ministers, including Bhupender Yadav, Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Mansukh Mandaviya, have also been fielded in the general election, after the party chose not to give them another Rajya Sabha term during the recent biennial polls to the Upper House of Parliament.