 "BJP")
Continuing with its strategy to field Lok Sabha members for the forthcoming Assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday released its first list of 52 candidates for the 119-member Telangana Assembly elections, including three of its four Lok Sabha MPs.
Telangana’s 31.73-million electorate will vote on November 30.
The BJP's Huzurabad legislator, former Bharat Rashtra Samithi minister Etela Rajender, will contest against Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao from the Gajwel seat. Rajender will also contest from his sitting Huzurabad seat. Rao comfortably won the Gajwel seat in 2014 and 2018.
The BJP has fielded Karimnagar Lok Sabha MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar, Nizamabad MP Dharmapuri Arvind and Soyam Bapu Rao. Union minister and state unit chief G Kishan Reddy is its fourth MP from the state, but his name was not on the first list. Bandi Sanjay will contest from Karimnagar, Dharmapuri from Korutla and Bapu Rao from Boath.
The BJP is also exploring an alliance with actor-politician and Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan, who had earlier said his party would contest 32 seats. The BJP has fielded 12 women in its first list of 52. The BRS has renominated only seven women in its entire list of 119.
In the run-up to the special session of Parliament, the BRS had stridently demanded one-third reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies.
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The BJP has renominated its controversial Goshamahal legislator T Raja Singh, revoking his suspension from his sitting constituency. The BJP had performed well in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in the state and would try to improve its Assembly performance, where the fight is being seen principally as one between the ruling BRS and the Congress.
On Saturday, the BJP released its second list for the Rajasthan Assembly polls consisting of 83 names, accommodating several candidates considered close to former chief minister Vasundhara Raje.
In the first list, the party had fielded half a dozen of its Lok Sabha MPs and denied tickets to some of its sitting legislators, including Narpat Singh Rajvi, replacing him with Lok Sabha MP Diya Kumari from the Vidyadhar Nagar seat.
However, in the second list, after party workers protested, Rajvi, former vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhwat's son-in-law, has been fielded from the Chittorgarh seat.
