BJP picks Sanjay Tandon for Chandigarh, ex-PM Chandrashekhar’s son for Ballia

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, April 10

In its tenth list of nominees unveiled today, the BJP declared Sanjay Tandon as its candidate for Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat. Dropping the two-term MP Kirron Kher, the party preferred a homegrown leader over a celebrity import to represent the VIP segment.

Sanjay, 60, is the son of late RSS veteran Balramji Das Tandon, who was the founding member of the Jan Sangh, a six-time MLA, four-time minister and Governor of Chhattisgarh between 2014 and 2018.

Poll surveys and feedback from Chandigarh constituents led to Sanjay’s selection with sources saying he was way ahead of others in ratings, which the party factored in despite a pressing urge to field an outsider. Sanjay has been the longest-serving president of Chandigarh unit (2010 to 2020).

The other highlights of the list which features seven candidates from UP and one each from Chandigarh and West Bengal’s Asansol are inclusion of former PM Chandrashekhar’s son Neeraj Shekhar as a candidate from Ballia in place of local strongman and four-term MP Virendra Singh; candidature of BJP’s sole turbaned Sikh MP SS Ahluwalia against TMC’s sitting MP Shatrughan Sinha in Asansol; dropping of sitting MP Rita Bahuguna from Allahabad (Prayagraj) in favour of Neeraj Tripathi, son of former Governor KN Tripathi.

In Ghazipur, where the Samajwadi Party’s Afzal Ansari (brother of deceased gangster Mukhtar Ansari) is the sitting MP, the BJP has fielded Paras Nath Rai, who owns a vast network of educational institutions locally. Ansari, as a joint SP-BSP candidate in 2019 LS poll, had defeated BJP’s Manoj Sinha, the incumbent LG of Jammu and Kashmir, in Ghazipur.

Opposite SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav, who is defending the Yadav family citadel of Mainpuri in UP, the BJP has fielded state tourism minister Jaiveer Thakur, a former SP leader.

In Phulpur, the seat of two late PMs Jawaharlal Nehru and VP Singh, the BJP has dropped its sitting MP Keshari Devi Patel and fielded local MLA Praveen Patel.

35% of sitting MPs dropped so far

BJP has so far declared 428 candidates in 10 lists, dropping nearly 108 (over 35%) of its 303 sitting MPs.

Suspense over Rae Bareli seat

BJP continues to maintain suspense over two UP seats — Rae Bareli, which former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi represents in the outgoing Lok Sabha, and Kaiserganj, which former WFI chief Brij Bhushan Singh holds