M A I N   N E W S

Jaitley, Mahajan, Sushma not to contest
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 23
Two former Chief Ministers — Kailash Joshi of Madhya Pradesh and Babu Lal Marandi of Jharkhand and the sons of Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Union Finance Minister Jaswant Singh figure in the fourth list of 36 BJP candidates released here today for the Lok Sabha elections.

While Mr Joshi has been fielded from Bhopal which was represented by Chief Minister Uma Bharti in the dissolved Lok Sabha, Mr Marandi will be the party candidate from Kodarma.

Mr Dushyant Singh, son of Mrs Raje will contest from Jhalawar (Rajasthan) and Mr Manvendra Singh , son of Mr Jaswant Singh is being fielded from Barmer . Mr Manvendra Singh had unsuccessfully contested the last Lok Sabha elections in 1999.

BJP leaders Arun Jaitley, Pramod Mahajan, Sushma Swaraj and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi will not be contesting the coming Lok Sabha elections.

Announcing this after a meeting of the party’s central election committee here today, Mr Naqvi said these leaders would be campaigning for the party.

In today’s list of 36 candidates, 15 are sitting members. Three candidates are women and three belong to SC and 2 ST.

With today’s list, the BJP has announced 323 candidates, 152 sitting, 28 women, 44 SC and 30 ST.

Another 40-42 candidates will be selected in the party’s central election committee meeting on March 27, party general secretary Pramod Mahajan said releasing the list. Altogether, the party will field some 365 candidates, he said.

The party also announced four candidates for Karnataka Assembly elections and six for Orissa assembly.

Replying to a question, Mr Mahajan admitted that the party had denied tickets to about 25 sitting MPs. Of the 182 BJP MPs in the 13th Lok Sabha the party had renominated 152 till now excluding five sitting MPs from Haryana about whom it was to be decided on March 27.

Today’s list included nominees for Rajasthan (18), Gujarat (3), Jharkhand (3), MP (6), Karnataka (1), Dadar and Nagar Haveli (1), UP (1), Meghalaya (1) and Maharashtra (1).

The party nominated Subhangini Devi Gaekwad from Kheda Lok Sabha constituency in Gujarat, and Mr Giridhari Lal Bhargava from Jaipur from where he had won five times.

Besides Haryana the party is still to decide candidates for UP (9), Karnataka (3), Maharashtra (3), Rajasthan 6, Delhi, Bihar and Uttaranchal one each. Changing sitting MP from Damoh the party decided to put up Mr Chandrabhan Singh from here.

He denied that there was any resentment among the partymen not being offered tickets. He said the party had kept ‘winnability’ the sole criteria while selecting candidates.

The BJP and JD(U) which had reached an understanding on sharing of tickets in Karnataka this morning, however, failed to have such arrangement in Jharkhand. Mr Mahajan said that the BJP was not in a position to spare the seats demanded by the JD(U) and hoped that they would understand the party’s compulsion.