The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its first list of 184 candidates for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls on Thursday. It said Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest from his sitting seat of Varanasi, while party chief Amit Shah will make his Lok Sabha electoral debut, contesting from Gandhinagar in Gujarat.
Other highlights were BJP announcing 28 candidates in Uttar Pradesh, replacing six sitting MPs, four of whom were on seats reserved for Scheduled Castes, which reflected the party’s concerns at the Samajwadi Party–Bahujan Samaj Party–Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance.
In 2014, the BJP had won 71 of UP’s 80 seats, with ally