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BJP gives Khurana, Verma poll tickets, but not Swaraj

The Bharatiya Janata Party tonight cleared its first list of 139 candidates for the general election, renominating 79 members of the twelfth Lok Sabha and dropping eight.

Prominent among those who figure in the list are Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Lucknow), Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani (Gandhinagar), Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi (Allahabad), Civil Aviation Minister Ananth Kumar (Bangalore South), Urban Development Minister Jagmohan (New Delhi), Textiles Minister Kashiram Rana (Surat) and Labour Minister Satyanarayan Jatia (Ujjain).

Briefing reporters after the two-day central election committee meeting, party spokesman M Venkaiah Naidu said the CEC would meet again on August 10 to finalise nominations for the rest of the Lok Sabha seats from Assam, Bihar, Kerala, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

The CEC will also take up the candidate lists for the state assemblies in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra, which are going to the polls at the same time as the Lok Sabha.

Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers A K Patel (Mehsana), Minister of State for Urban Development Bandaru Dattatreya (Secunderabad), Minister of State for Rural Development Babagouda Patil (Belgaum), Minister of State for Sports and Youth Affairs Uma Bharati (Khajuraho), Minister of State for Steel and Mines Ramesh Bias (Raipur), Minister of State for Railways and Home Ram Naik (Bombay North), Minister of State for External Affairs Vasundhararaje Scindia (Jhalawar) and Minister of State for Urban Development Debendra Pradhan (Deogarh) also figure in the first list.

The list includes three former chief ministers -- Shanta Kumar (Kangra in Himachal Pradesh), Madan Lal Khurana and Sahib Singh Verma (both Delhi).

Two party vice-presidents, Krishen Lal Sharma (Chandigarh) and Bangaru Laxman (Jalore-SC) are also in the list. While Sharma had represented Outer Delhi last time, Laxman is a Rajya Sabha member.

Naidu said Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia is not contesting on account of ill health. And former Delhi chief minister Sushma Swaraj has expressed her unwillingness to contest the poll this time. The CEC did not, however, accept a similar plea from Sumitra Mahajan and renominated her from Indore.

The state-wise break up of candidates finalised tonight are: Uttar Pradesh (2), Gujarat (23), Karnataka (13), Madhya Pradesh (27), Delhi (7), Andhra Pradesh (4), Maharashtra (11), Orissa (9), Rajasthan (16), West Bengal (11), Punjab (3), Himachal Pradesh (3), Jammu & Kashmir (2), Tripura (2), Goa (2) and one each from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Diu-Daman.

The BJP had fielded 13 candidates from Karnataka and nine from Orissa last time. It has repeated the numbers this time.

But the vexed Bankura seat in Bengal evades a solution with both the BJP and the Trinamul Congress staking their claim on it.

Changes affected so far are in Chandigarh, South Delhi, Outer Delhi, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Sidhi, Shahdol, Jabalpur, (all three in Madhya Pradesh) and Keonjhar (Orissa).

UNI

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