The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s first list of candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha Polls in Uttar Pradesh has taken many pundits by surprise. Despite intense speculation about a possible major revamp among the existing set of MPs, there were no noticeable changes in the list of 51 nominees announced on Saturday. Barring four seats, forty-seven MPs have been fielded again. The list has created ripples in UP’s political circles with analysts calling it another signal that the 2024 Lok Sabha polls will be “Modi vs the rest”.
“On many seats, there was speculation about changes. But BJP’s list took us all by surprise. It is a signal to the largely divided opposition that the BJP is confident of pro-incumbency under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s stewardship. And the 2024 Lok Sabha election will be ‘Modi vs Rest’,” said Shashikant Pandey, head of the political science department at Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow.
The BJP’s Uttar Pradesh list of candidates has nine union ministers, five women, and four new faces. Forty-seven of the present MPs have been fielded again. The four new faces are Saket Misra from Shravasti, Ritesh Pandey from Ambedkar Nagar, Kripa Shankar Singh from Jaunpur, and Om Kumar from Nagina — all seats that the BJP lost in 2019. A majority of the MPs retained on the list are OBCs and Dalits.
Pandey said the BJP’s list is also a clear indication that the polls are being fought with the face of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and who the candidates are doesn’t matter much to the party. “Abki baar Modi sarkar, Modi hai to mumkin hai, Modi ki guarantee…there is not a single BJP catchphrase where there is a mention of the party. Due to the unprecedented rise in the popularity of PM Narendra Modi, he continues to lead the list of heavyweights in the party,” said Pandey.
He added that while the PM’s “strong face value” is one aspect, other factors have boosted the confidence of the party, and this is visible in its recent moves.
“Another major element is successful tie-ups with smaller parties, especially in the western UP, which was considered a weak spot for the BJP. With the joining of the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) led by Om Prakash Rajbhar and the induction of other key politicians from different parties belonging to the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, and backward communities, the BJP seems confident enough ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha Polls,” Pandey added.
Besides, he said, the realisation of Ayodhya’s Ram temple and the consecration ceremony in January have also the buoyed the party’s spirits.
In BJP’s first list, Modi expectedly has got a third consecutive nomination from Varanasi, while defence minister Rajnath Singh will recontest from Lucknow, and union minister Smriti Irani is the party candidate from Amethi again, a Lok Sabha constituency from where, until 2019, the Congress had only lost twice.
The party has once again fielded junior union home minister Ajay Kumar Mishra ‘Teni’ from Kheri. Teni had been in the eye of a political storm after the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case of October 3, 2021, in which his son Ashish is an accused.
Among the new names, Saket Misra, who is presently an MLC, is the son of Nripendra Mishra, who is chairman of the Ayodhya Ram Temple Construction Committee and former principal secretary to Prime Minister Modi.
The BJP’s first UP list includes five women – Rekha Verma (OBC, Dhaurahara), Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (OBC, Fatehpur), Neelam Sonkar (SC, Lalganj), Hema Malini (Mathura), and Smriti Irani (Amethi).
However, a BJP functionary said surprises are expected in the second list of candidates, which is likely to be released on March 6. The key seats to watch would be Congress bastion Raebareli, as well as Sultanpur and Pilibhit, currently held by BJP’s mother-son duo Maneka Gandhi and Varun Gandhi.
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