LS elections 2024: BJP announces 15 candidates each for Gujarat, Rajasthan ahead of polls

The Bharatiya Janata Party today (March 2) announced the names of candidates for 15 out of 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat, dropping five sitting MPs and giving tickets to Union ministers Mansukh Mandaviya and Parshottam Rupala. The BJP announced its first list of candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, to be held in the first half of the year, in the evening in New Delhi.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah will fight from Gandhinagar, a seat he won with a huge margin in the 2019 polls, while Gujarat BJP chief CR Paatil has been retained from Navsari.

Sitting MPs who have been denied tickets are former Union minister of state



Mohan Kundariya from Rajkot, Ramesh Dhaduk from Porbandar, Kirit Solanki from Ahmedabad East, Parbat Patel from Banaskantha and Ratansinh Rathod from Panchmahal.

Union agriculture minister Parshottam Rupala, who hails from neighbouring Amreli district, will fight from Rajkot in place of Kundariya. Mandaviya, who is from Bhavnagar district, has been fielded from Porbandar in place of Dhaduk.

The BJP has fielded six-time MP and senior tribal leader Mansukh Vasava from Bharuch, which is one of the two seats given by the opposition Congress to the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party as part of their INDIA bloc agreement.