LS elections 2024: Varun Gandhi, Anantkumar Hegde, Darshana Jardosh among 37 MPs dropped by BJP. Details here

Lok Sabha polls: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday released its fifth list of 111 candidates for the upcoming general elections. Among those who made the cut in this list are Ramayan actor Arun Govil, Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut, ex-PM HD Deve Gowda's son-in-law Dr C N Manjunath, Sandeshkhali violence survivor Rekha Patra, and industrialist Naveen Jindal.

In this list, the party dropped 37 sitting MPs, including Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit and General (Retired) VK Singh from Ghaziabad. The saffron party also axed Anantkumar Hegde, a five-time MP from Uttara Kannada, whose remarks on Constitution sparked a huge political row. 

Hegde has been replaced with former Karnataka Assembly Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kaggeri. Hegde stirred a hornet's nest when he said the Constitution would be changed if the BJP won a resounding majority in the 2024 general elections.

In Pilibhit, Varun Gandhi has been replaced by former Congress leader Jitin Prasada. Varun's mother and former Union minister Maneka Gandhi, however, has been retained from Sultanpur.

In Ghaziabad, General (Retd) VK Singh has been replaced by Atul Garg. Singh, who won the Ghaziabad seat twice in 2014 and 2019, opted out of the Lok Sabha elections 2024.

The saffron party has also replaced sitting MP Ajay Nishad with Raj Bhushan Nishad from the Muzaffarpur seat in Bihar. In Sasaram, sitting Chhedi Paswan has replaced Shivesh Ram. Union Minister Ashwini Choubey has also been axed from the Buxar constituency. 

In Odisha, the BJP has dropped 4 sitting MPs including Union minister Bisweshwar Tudu from Mayurbhanj, Suresh Pujari from Bargarh, Nitish Garg Deb from Sambalpur and Basant Panda from Kalahandi.

They have been replaced by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan (Sambalpur), Rairangpur MLA Naba Charan Majhi (Mayurbhanj), Pradeep Purohit (Bargarh) and Malvika Keshari Deo (Kalahandi) respectively. 

In West Bengal, the party replaced parliamentarian SS Ahluwalia from the Bardhaman-Durgapur seat with its former state unit president Dilip Ghosh. Previously, Ghosh represented the Medinipur seat.

The party has fielded fashion designer-turned politician Agnimitra Paul from Medinipur. The fashion designer-turned politician is currently a member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly. 

In Gujarat, the party has axed Darshana Jardosh from Surat. Instead, Mukeshbhai Chandrakant Dalal has been given the ticket from this constituency in the border state.  

Previously, the party also cut tickets of other leaders including Jayant Sinha, Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and Ramesh Bidhuri for controversial statements. The BJP also axed Meenakshi Lekhi from the New Delhi constituency. Lekhi was replaced by lawyer and former Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj's daughter Bansuri Swaraj.