Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Feb 27: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tonight announced candidates for five Lok Sabha seats of Jammu and Kashmir fielding heavyweights Jugal Kishore, state party president and Dr Jitendera Singh, member national executive and chief spokesperson for J&K, for Jammu-Poonch and Udhampur-Doda Lok Sabha seats respectively.
Names of five BJP candidates were cleared by the Central Parliamentary Board tonight in the total list of 54.
The BJP has fielded former Lok Sabha member Thupstan Chhewang for Ladakh seat, Ghulam Mohammad Mir, vice president of the party for Baramulla and Mushtaq Ahmad Malik Nurabadi, state president, Muslim Morcha for Anantnag seats, a BJP handout mailed to the Excelsior by the party’s Central Office in New Delhi tonight, said.
However, the BJP has not fielded any candidate for Srinagar Lok Sabha seat but a senior party leader told the Excelsior that the party was anticipating a senior Kashmir leader to join the party soon and would field him for Srinagar.
The Parliamentary Board of the BJP, which met in New Delhi, cleared five names for Jammu and Kashmir Lok Sabha elections, scheduled to be held in April-May this year. The Parliamentary Board met under the chairmanship of BJP president Rajnath Singh. Other senior party leaders, who attended the meeting were BJP Parliamentary Party chairman LK Advani, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley and all members of the Central Election Committee including party Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, Nitin Gadkari, Murli Manohar Joshi, Vankaiah Naidu and Gopinath Munde.
The BJP has replaced its both candidates for Jammu-Poonch and Udhampur-Doda Lok Sabha seats, who had lost 2009 general elections. BJP candidate Leela Karan Sharma had lost Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha seat to sitting Congress MP Madan Lal Sharma while Dr Nirmal Singh had lost Udhampur-Doda seat to another sitting Congress MP Lal Singh.
Dr Nirmal Singh and Shamsher Singh, another former State president were in the BJP panel for Udhampur-Doda seat while apart from Jugal Sharma, the BJP leaders in the panel for Jammu-Poonch seat were Sat Sharma, CA, Chander Prakash Ganga and Vibodh Gupta.
Jugal Kishore, the state BJP president, is second time MLA from Nagrota Assembly constituency having both times defeated National Conference heavyweight Ajatshatru Singh. He was lone BJP MLA in 2002-2008 Assembly.
Dr Jitendera Singh had shot into limelight during 2008 Amarnath land row. After joining the BJP, he was made national executive member, chief spokesperson for J&K and member national panel of electronic media spokespersons.
The BJP candidate for Ladakh Thupstan Chhewang had won the seat as an Independent candidate in 2004 but lost 2008 Assembly election from Leh. Later, he had joined the BJP. He is a strong supporter of Union Territory status to Ladakh. The BJP has already endorsed the demand for UT status to Ladakh.
Mr Chhewang is also BJP’s national executive member.
The BJP has fielded Ghulam Mohammad Mir, a former PDP leader and vice president of the State unit of BJP on Baramulla seat and Mushtaq Ahmad Malik Nurabadi, State Muslim Morcha head of the party on Anantnag seat.
The stakes for the BJP are very high with Narendra Modi effect looming large.
The BJP had been struggling to regain both Jammu-Poonch and Lok Sabha seats, which it had last won in 1999. Since then, it had failed to send any representative in Lok Sabha from Jammu and Kashmir. BJP candidates late Vaid Vishnu Dutt and Prof Chaman Lal Gupta (now expelled from the party) had won Jammu-Poonch and Udhampur-Doda seats consecutively in 1998 and 1999 Lok Sabha elections under the leadership of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Prof Gupta had also won Udhampur-Doda seat in 1996.
Congress sitting MPs from Jammu-Poonch and Udhampur-Doda Lok Sabha seats Madan Lal Sharma and Choudhary Lal had won the seats consecutively for two terms in 2004 and 2009 elections. In 2004, the Congress had alliance with PDP while in 2009, they had alliance with NC for Lok Sabha seats.
In 2000 by-election held for Jammu-Poonch seat after the death of BJP leader Vaid Vishnu Dutt, NC candidate Choudhary Talib Hussain wrested the seat defeating BJP’s Nirmal Singh and Congress candidate Madan Lal Sharma.
In 2004 election, Madan Lal had defeated BJP’s Nirmal Singh with a narrow margin while in 2009, he had defeated BJP’s Leela Karan Sharma with a heavy margin. Choudhary Lal Singh had defeated Prof Gupta in 2004 and Dr Nirmal Singh with a narrow margin in 2009.
Though the Congress was yet to name its candidates, there was a strong possibility that the party could repeat both the candidates for Jammu and Udhampur Lok Sabha seats.
The PDP has already fielded Yash Pal Sharma for Jammu-Poonch, Arshad Malik for Udhampur-Doda, Tariq Hamid Qarra for Srinagar-Budgam, Muzaffar Hussain Baig for Baramulla-Kupwara and Mehbooba Mufti for Anantnag-Pulwama Lok Sabha seats.
Ruling National Conference has repeated its all three sitting MPs in Kashmir including Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Dr Farooq Abdullah for Srinagar, Sharief-ud-Din Shariq for Baramulla and Dr Mehboob Beg for Anantnag Lok Sabha seats.
BJP leaders said they have not announced any candidate for Srinagar Lok Sabha seat as they had indications of a senior Kashmir leader joining the party soon. “If this happened, he would be given mandate from Srinagar,” they said without identifying the senior leader.
PTI adds from New Delhi:
Former BJP chief Nitin Gadkari, ex-Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Shanta Kumar, party’s deputy leader in Lok Sabha Gopinath Munde and Yuva Morcha chief Anurag Thakur are among the 54 names in BJP’s first list of candidates released tonight for Lok Sabha polls.
The list released after a meeting of the party’s Central Election Committee, covers eight states and includes six SCs and six STs, four minorities and two women.
While Gadkari will contest for Nagpur Lok Sabha seat, Munde will be in fray in his Beed seat in Maharashtra and in Himachal Pradesh Shanta Kumar will be trying his luck from Kangra and Thakur in Hamirpur.
The list also includes well-known magician P C Sorcar (Jr) who will contest from Barasat in West Bengal, former union minister Tapan Sikdar to be fielded from Dum Dum seat in West Bengal, former union minister Jual Oram from Sundargarh (ST) in Odisha and film actor George Baker from Howrah in West Bengal.
Of the 54 candidates finalised today, 17 each are in Maharashtra and West Bengal, six in Odisha, three in Himachal Pradesh and two each in Goa, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh apart from five in JK.
Among the 17 candidates from Maharashtra in the first list, the party decided to field Kirit Somaiah from Mumbai North-East instead of Poonam Mahajan, daughter of BJP’s late leader Pramod Mahajan, who was vying for the seat.
BJP has fielded cancer surgeon Subhash Bhamre from Dhule seat, sitting MPs Ashok Tapiram Patil and Sanjya Javle from Raver and Akola seats, sitting MLA Nana Patole from Bhandara- Gondiya seat and state president of the ST Morcha Ashok Nete from Gadchiroli-Chimur (ST) seat.
Sitting MPs Hansraj Ahir from Chandrapur, Ravsaheb Danve Patil from Jalna seat and Harishchandra Chowhan from Dindori (ST) seat, while former MPs D B Patil and Chintaman Vangna will contest from Nanded and Palghar (ST) seats.
Dilip Gandhi will contest from Ahmadnagar and former MLA Sanjaykaka Patil from Sangli in Maharashtra.
In West Bengal where the party finalised 17 candidates, state president Rahul Sinha will contest from Kolkata Uttar and former state president Tathagat Roy will fight it out in Kolkata Dakshin. Subhash Sarkar, BJP state vice president, has been fielded from Bankura.
Former DIG Satyalal Sarkar has been fielded from Jalpaiguri (SC) seat and retired IPS officers Sujit Kumar Ghosh and R K Mahanati from Murshidabad and Uluberia seats, party’s state general secretary Biswapriya Roychowdhary from Balurghat, party’s district president Hemchandra Burman from Cooch Behar (SC) and district general secretary Samrat Ghosh from Jangipur.
Sitting MP from Shimla (SC) in Himachal Pradesh Virender Kashyap will recontest from the seat.
Of the two seats in Goa, sitting MP from North Goa Shripad Yesso Naik will recontest from the seat while Narendra Keshav Sawaikar, state party general secretary, will contest for South Goa.
In Arunachal Pradesh, former MPs Kiren Rijiju and Tapir Gao will contest from Arunachal West and East seats respectively.
In Manipur, R K Ranjan Singh will contest from inner Manipur while Gangmumei Kamei will fight for Outer Manipur (ST) seat.
From Odisha, former Minister Jual Oram will contest from Sundargarh (ST), while former state president Suresh Pujari will be in fray in Sambalpur and former MPs Rudra Narayan Pani and Sangeeta Kumari Deo from Dhenkanal and Bolangir respectively. Former MP Parsuram Majhi will contest from Navarangpur (ST) and Baidhar Mallik from Jagatsinghpur (SC) seat.
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