The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its 10th list of Lok Sabha candidates with nine names on Wednesday (10 April).

The party has cut the ticket of sitting two-time Chandigarh MP Kirron Kher, replacing her with Sanjay Tandon, BJP’s Chandigarh president.

The BJP also declared SS Ahluwalia, the incumbent MP from Bardhaman-Durgapur, as a candidate from Asansol after Bhojpuri star Pawan Singh backed off.

This will be third constituency of West Bengal that Ahluwalia will be contesting. In 2014, he won from Darjeeling and from Bardhaman-Durgapur in 2019.

The third list declares seven candidates for Uttar Pradesh. State Tourism Minister Jaiveer Singh Thakur will contest from Mainpuri against Samajwadi Party’s (SP) Dimple Yadav.

Two incumbent MPs, Vinod Sonkar from Kaushambi and BP Saroj from Machhlishahr have been repeated. Phulpur MLA Praveen Patel has been given a Lok Sabha ticket from here.

As Prayagraj MP and former UP Minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi will be 75 years of age in a couple of months, she has been replaced By Neeraj Tripathi.

Rajya Sabha MP and son of former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, Neeraj Shekhar is fielded from Ballia, a constituency he earlier won twice (in 2008 by-polls and 2009) as an SP candidate.

However, in 2014, he lost to BJP’s Bharat Singh when he contested on an SP ticket. His father Chandra Sekhar won Lok Sabha elections from here eight times.

In his electoral debut, Paras Nath Rai is set to challenge SP’s Afzal Ansari, brother of gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari who recently died. Rai comes from an RSS background and is fielded from Ghazipur.

In 2019, the seat was won by Afzal on a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket. BJP’s Manoj Sinha lost against him and later became Lieutenant Governor of Jammu-Kashmir. Rai is considered close to Sinha.