M A I N   N E W S

BJP gives Karnal ticket to Swami
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 27
The Bharatiya Janata Party today announced candidates against Congress President Sonia Gandhi, her son Rahul Gandhi and gave tickets to wife of one of its controversial chief Bangaru Laxman and Minister of State for Home I.D. Swami.

The party cleared 23 names, including that of Mr Swami from Karnal (Haryana) and film actor Dharmendra from Bikaner (Rajasthan) at its Central Election Committee meeting here, which was attended for the first time by Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, who has just ended his first phase of ‘Bharat Uday Yatra’.

All the other four sitting MPs— Rattan Lal Kataria (Ambala), Kishan Singh Sangwan (Sonepat), Ramchander Bainda (Faridabad) and Sudha Yadav (Mahendragarh) — have been renominated from Haryana.

In a bid to arrest impending trouble from Mr Laxman, who resigned in the wake of the Tehelka episode, the BJP nominated his wife to the Jalore Lok Sabha seat even as it named firebrand VHP leader and ex-MP Ram Vilas Vedanti to take on Rahul Gandhi and ex-MLA Girish Narain Pande against Mrs Gandhi in Amethi and Rae Bareli, respectively.

With today’s announcement, the BJP has so far cleared 346 names and authorised its President M Venkaiah Naidu to nominate candidates for the remaining 17 seats in consultation with other party leaders, party General Secretary Pramod Mahajan told newspersons here. Though Mr Laxman himself had evinced interest in contesting from the reserved seat in Rajasthan, the party opted to name his wife to keep the Dalit and backward voters in good humour.

While Mr Vedanti, who has been fielded against Mr Rahul Gandhi, had earlier represented the Machchlishahr constituency in the state, Mr Pandey, who is contesting against the Congress party Chief is a former legislator.

While Mr Satya Dev Pachouri is the party nominee from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, Mr Raj Narayan Singh has been named from Pratapgarh and Mr Shah Mohammed Khan from Azamgarh.

The names were decided in the BJP Central Election Committee meeting held this morning at the residence of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

While candidates were announced for nine seats in Uttar Pradesh, the party also allotted the Salempur seat to its ally Janata Dal (U) instead of Ghosi.

Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, who could not attend the previous four CEC meetings due to his Bharat Uday Yatra, was also present.