BJP Pits Smriti-Irani against Rahul Gandhi from Amethi and SC Lawyer Ajay Aggarwal against Sonia Gandhi in Rae Bareli

The BJP in a late night decision on Monday named actor-politician Smriti Irani as its Amethi candidate to take on Rahul Gandhi and make a match of a contest tilted heavily in favour of the Congress vice-president.

Contrary to speculation, the BJP opted for a Supreme Court lawyer, Ajay Aggarwal, and not Uma Bharti, for Rae Bareli from where Congress president Sonia Gandhi is seeking a re-election.

With the Congress making public its intention to put up a "formidable" candidate against its PM candidate Narendra Modi in Varanasi, the BJP decided to challenge Rahul, who is leading the Congress’ Lok Sabha campaign.

The party expects its Rajya Sabha MP to put up a "tough" fight in a likely triangular contest in which Aam Aadmi Party’s Kumar Vishwas, a poet, is the third contestant.

The Samajwadi Party, which is in power in Uttar Pradesh, has decided against fielding candidates from the Gandhi pocket boroughs of Amethi and Rae Bareli.

Irani, who became a household name playing Tulsi in a popular TV soap, has served the party in various capacities — national secretary, chief of women's wing and now as a vice-president.

The 38-year-old, feels the party, would not only add glamour to the fight, but will also have the advantage of being the only prominent woman candidate from Amethi that goes to the polls on May 7.

"She is an energetic politician, who will make a difference despite the delayed announcement of her candidature," a BJP leader said.

The party didn’t opt for Bharti as she was reluctant to give up the Jhansi seat from where her candidature had been announced. "The party was not willing to concede to her demand for contesting from two seats in Uttar Pradesh," BJP sources said.

Earlier, she had flip-flopped on the party's offer to take on Sonia. First, Bharti said she would not leave Jhansi but a few days later she declared that she was ready to contest both the seats.

Minutes after his he was named the Rae Bareli candidate, Aggarwal told reporters that it was his petition before the Supreme Court in the Taj corridor case that eventually led to the fall of Mayawati government. He claimed contributing “a lot in exposing the truth in Bofors scandal”.

The BJP, said sources, was also close to sealing an alliance with N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP), delayed by last-minute glitches over seat-sharing. The talks with the TDP were "not over" and might take "a couple of more days", the party said.

The BJP wants to contest 40 of the 119 assembly seats and eight of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana. "We are even ready to accept two or three Lok Sabha seats (of 25) in Seemandhra, but agreeing to anything less than 25 assembly seats (out of 175) would be not possible," a BJP leader said.

Andhra Pradesh is holding assembly polls along with the Lok Sabha polls in two phases – April 30 in Telangana and May 7 in Seemandhra. The southern state is to be split on June 2 when a formal notification will name Telangana as the 29th state of the Indian union.

Source: Hindustan Times

BJP Candidates-List of Bihar 2014 Lok Sabha Election

BJP Candidates-List of Bihar for 2014 Lok Sabha Election
S. No.	Lok Sabha Seats	BJP Candidate Names
1	Bhagalpur	Shahnawaz Hussain
2	Darbhanga	Kirti Azad
3	Madhubani	Hukum Dev Narayan Yadav
4	Begusarai	Bhola Singh
5	Nawada	Giriraj Singh
6	Saran	Rajiv Pratap Rudi
7	Patna Sahib	Shatrughan Sinha
8	Arrah	R. K. Singh
9	Muzaffarpur	Ajay Nishad
10	Siwan	Om Prakash Yadav
11	Aurangabad (Bihar)	Sushil Kumar Singh
12	Patli Putra	Ram Kripal Yadav
13	Buxar	Ashwani Kumar Choubey
14	Sasaram (SC)	Chhedi Paswan
15	Valmiki Nagar	Satish Dubey
16	Gopalganj (SC)	Janak Ram
17	Banka	Putal Devi
18	Maharajganj (Bihar)	Janardan Singh Sigriwal
19	Paschim Champaran	Sanjay Jaisawal
20	Purvi Champaran	Radha Mohan Singh
21	Sheohar	Rama Devi
22	Sitamarhi
23	Jhanjharpur	Virendra Kumar Chaudhary
24	Supaul	Kameshwar Choupal
25	Araria	Pradeep Singh
26	Kishanganj	Dilip Jaisawal
27	Katihar	Nikhil Kumar Chaudhary
28	Purnia	Uday Singh
29	Madhepura	Vijay Kumar Kushwaha
30	Jahanabad
31	Karakat
32	Gaya (SC)	Hari Majhi
33	Nalanda
34	Ujiarpur	Nityanand Rai
35	Hajipur (SC)	Ram Vilas Paswan (LJP)
36	Jamui (SC)	Chirag Paswan (LJP)
37	Samastipur (SC)	Ram Chandra Paswan (LJP)
38	Khagaria	Pashupati Kumar Paswan (LJP)
39	Vaishali	Rama Singh (LJP)
40	Munger	Chandan Singh (LJP)

[Note: The remaining candidates list will be updates as it is announced.]

Source: BJP.Org

No 'Plan B': Narendra Modi to Decide BJP's Course if it Fails in Lok Sabha Polls

Narendra Modi stands the best chance of becoming prime minister after the Lok Sabha elections and he alone will decide what course the BJP takes if it fails to get the required numbers on its own. This is the prevalent view in the RSS.

Top leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP’s ideological parent, also dismissed speculation about a ‘Plan B’ in the BJP — the possibility of a more “acceptable” leader taking Modi’s place if the number don’t add up in favour of the designated PM candidate — as “empty talk”.

They said they didn’t see Modi not making it when all reports pointed to a huge surge in favour of the Modi-led BJP campaign. Their assessment was that Modi would make it “without difficulty”.

“All this talk of Modi being replaced or somebody being appointed deputy PM is plain bunkum. Everything will depend on what Modi wants after the results,” an RSS insider said on Thursday. “Either it will be Modi as PM or the BJP decides to sit in the opposition. Modi will have the final say in consultation with others on the BJP’s next course of action.”

He added, “The RSS is clear that there should be no short cut to power. If you get the numbers, form the government. Otherwise, wait your turn. But we do not think such an eventuality is likely. The BJP is set for a comfortable win to form the government under Modi.”

The RSS’ views come in the backdrop of BJP circles being abuzz with post-poll possibilities and whether Modi would make way for someone else, be it LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj or even BJP president Rajnath Singh.

Talk of a “deputy PM” started after Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal suggested Arun Jaitley, the BJP’s Amritsar candidate, could be given that post in the event of an NDA government coming to power. Jaitely sought to play down the remark.

On Wednesday, Madhya Pradesh tourism minister Surendra Patwa said Swaraj could be a future deputy PM.

Rajnath added to the buzz with two controversial tweets, the first saying “Ab ki baar, Bhajapa sarkar (time for a BJP government)” that he replaced 33 minutes later with “Ab ki baar, Modi sarkar (time for a Modi government)”.

“We do not think on these lines at all. This is pure speculation without any basis or support of the Sangh. Having led this campaign, it will have to be Modi who takes the final call. There is no doubt about that,” said another RSS insider.

The RSS has also not taken kindly to the crisis in the BJP over ticket distribution —with Advani expressing a sudden desire to shift to Bhopal, Swaraj tweeting her opposition to the selection process and expressing “sadness” over veteran Jaswant Singh being denied the Barmer seat.

The Sangh leaders were keen to emphasise that neither RSS chief Mohan Bhagat, nor his deputy Bhaiyaaji Joshi had any role in these issues.

Source: HindustanTimes

Battle for Vadodara: Modi's Journey from an RSS Pracharak to BJP’s PM Candidate

The one-room office with a bed laid in a corner of the building called “Keshavniketan” in Shastripol area was Narendra Modi’s first camp in Vadodara in 1980, recalls Chandrakant Ravalia (57), who first met him in 1973 at the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak (RSS) shibir in Nadiad. Modi came here as an RSS pracharak, when the city was under influence largely of the Congress, with its prominent royal scions as its parliamentarians.

The battle for Vadodara and the PMO now promises to be interesting with the Congress changing its candidate to field general secretary Madhusudan Mistry, who is also the party’s Uttar Pradesh in charge.

He replaces city unit president Narendra Ravat who had won the primaries. The other contenders are Samajwadi Party’s Kirit Prakash Yadav and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Janata Dal (U) which will also field candidates.

Vadodara parliamentary constituency, which covers a good part of the erstwhile Gaekwadi state of Baroda, is also dubbed the culture capital of Gujarat, mainly because of its former ruler Sayajirao Gaekwad III, who gave the city a distinct cosmopolitan character, world-class architecture, academic institutions and the arts.

Modi returns to Vadodara as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate to fight the Lok Sabha elections, long after the city’s political vote went to the BJP, at the hands of “Sita” literally.

In 1991, the BJP fielded Deepika Chikhalia, a political novice and television actor who became popular playing the character of “Sita” in the serial Ramayana, when the serial was at its peak popularity. She defeated Ranjitsinh Gaekwad, the late maharaja of Vadodara and sitting MP.

Considered a safe seat, the sitting BJP MLA Balkrishna Shukla won with a huge margin of over 1.5 lakh votes in 2009 LS elections. The city BJP leaders are already publicising Modi’s candidature from here as a coincidence (Varanasi and Vadodara) of the letter “V” — a sign Modi often waves for victory.

Vadodara parliamentary seat was held by the Congress — backed by the traditional popularity of Gaekwad royal scions, who fought on the party ticket beginning with the late Fatehsinhrao Gaekwad in 1957, followed by his younger brother Ranjitsinh. Briefly, Pashabhai Patel of Swatantra Party and Prakash Brahmbhatt of Janata Dal won the seat in 1967 and 1989, respectively.

But the BJP lost to the Congress in 1996, to win it back in 1998 with MP Jayaben Thakkar, who won thrice consecutively, followed by Shukla.

By 2012, the Gaekwads had started warming up to Modi and the current maharaja, Samarjitsinh, is a member of the BJP. “I was inspired by Modi to work for the RSS. I first met him in Vadodara in 1980, when he came here to work as a pracharak. He was a hard-working karyakarta, venturing out to remote regions around Vadodara to meet people. We’d go along on a rickety Vespa scooter that I owned,” said Manibhai Patel (65), who is now working as the state general secretary of the Bhartiya Kisan Sangh, an RSS wing.

There are 11.4 lakh voters in Vadodara Lok Sabha constituency, with 5.9 lakhs female voters and 5.4 lakhs male voters. The seven Assembly constituencies within Vadodara LS seat — Sayajigunj, Vadodara city, Akota, Raopura, Manjalpur, Savli and Waghodia — are all held by the BJP. The party also rules over city’s municipal corporation.

Waghodia area saw one of the bloodiest massacres of 2002 riots with the killing of 14 people in the Best Bakery, which was tried in Maharashtra after an indictment from the Supreme Court.

Madhu Srivastava, the Waghodia MLA, has had several run-ins with the law, including his dubious role in the Best Bakery case which surfaced in a sting operation where he details how he bribed the prime witness Zahira Sheikh who had turned hostile. Srivastava was also accused but later acquitted in a scam related to paying a packaging contractor.

Srivastava released a Gujarati movie last week, featuring him as a hero, Thakorna Kol, Jagma Anmol, which briefly landed in trouble after some activists complained that it violated the model code of conduct.

Source: IndianExpress

Eye on Patel Votes in UP-BJP Allies with Apna-Dal ahead of 2014 Polls

In an attempt to woo the Kurmi community in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP on Monday entered into a pre-poll alliance with Apna Dal that will contest from two Lok Sabha seats — Pratapgarh and Mirzapur — under the alliance in the state. Each of these two seats have more than 1.5 lakh Patel votes.

"It (alliance) will strengthen BJP and Apna Dal as well," said BJP general secretary incharge of Uttar Pradesh Amit Shah after the announcement at party headquarters in the capital on Monday.

"Modi also comes from a backward caste. His leadership will change the fortune of the country," Apna Dal general secretary Anupriya Patel said after the announcement of the alliance. The sizeable presence of Patel community votes in two rural Assembly segments of Varanasi Lok Sabha seat from where BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is contesting, appears to have led to the alliance.

The BJP, which is keen to revive its OBC support base in UP, has also tried to woo non-Yadav OBC communities like Kurmi and Lodh-Rajput backward communities in the state.

While the Apna Dal derives its support from Kurmi support base, the BJP has given tickets to six Lodh-Rajput candidates — Rajveer Singh (son of former UP CM Kalyan Singh), Uma Bharti, Sakshi Maharaj, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Mukesh Rajput and Naipal Singh — to woo these two non-Yadav OBC communities in the state.

BJP sources in Varanasi said that Patels in these areas, who belong to the Kurmi community, have traditionally been the saffron party supporters. But in the late 1990s, they gradually swayed towards the Apna Dal, established by Anupriya’s father Sone Lal Patel.

The total Patel community votes in Varanasi Lok Sabha seat are pegged at nearly 2.5 lakh. Apart from Rohaniya and Sewapuri, where conservative estimates put their number at over a lakh each, there are a few pockets in the city area too. In sealing the alliance, the BJP also appears to have given due thought to the possible game-spoiler effect which Apna Dal may have had, if Anupriya contested from Varanasi.

In 2012, she had polled nearly 58,000 votes in.

Source: FinancialExpress.com

BJP Candidates-List of Uttar Pradesh (UP) 2014 Lok Sabha Elections

BJP Candidates-List of Uttar Pradesh (UP) for 2014 Lok Sabha Election
S. No.	Lok Sabha Seats	BJP Candidate Names
1	Varanasi	Narendra Modi
2	Lucknow	Rajnath Singh
3	Kanpur	Murli Manohar Joshi
4	Jhansi	Uma Bharti
5	Etah	Rajveer Singh
6	Gorakhpur	Yogi Aditya Nath
7	Shrawasti	Daddan Mishra
8	Domariaganj	Jagdambika Pal
9	Gonda	Kirti Vardhan Singh
10	Kairana	Hukum Singh
11	Muzaffarnagar	Sanjeev Balyan
12	Bijnor	Rajendra Singh Advocate
13	Nagina (SC)
14	Moradabad	Kunwar Sarvesh Singh
15	Rampur	Naipal Singh
16	Sambhal	Satyapal Saini
17	Amroha	Kanwar Singh Tanwar
18	Meerut	Rajendra Aggrawal
19	Baghpat	Satpal Singh
20	Ghaziabad	General V K Singh
21	Gautam Buddh Nagar	Mahesh Sharma
22	Bulandshahar (SC)	Bhola Singh
23	Hathras (SC)	Rajesh Diwakar
24	Mathura	Hema Malini
25	Agra (SC)	Ramshankar Katheriya
26	Aligarh	Satish Goutam
27	Fatehpur Sikri	Chaudhary Babulal
28	Firozabad	S P Singh Baghel
29	Mainpuri	B S S Chauhan
30	Badaun	Vagish Pathak
31	Piliphit	Menka Gandhi
32	Shahjahanpur (SC)	Krishna Raj
33	Aonla	Dharmendra Kashyap
34	Sitapur	Sitapur
35	Bareilly	Santosh Gangwar
36	Kheri	Ajay Mishra Taini
37	Dhaurahra	Rekha Verma
38	Hardoi (SC)	Anshul Verma
39	Misrikh (SC)	Anju Bala
40	Unnao	Harisakshi Maharaj
41	Mohanlalganj	Kaushal Kishore
42	Amethi	Smriti Irani
43	Rai Barely	Ajay Aggarwal
44	Sultanpur	Varun Gandhi
45	Machhlisharah (SC)	Ramcharitra Nishad
46	Ghazipur	Manoj Sinha
47	Jaunpur	K P Singh
48	Ballia	Bharat Singh
49	Salempur	Ravindra Kushwaha
50	Ghosi	Harinarayan Rajbhar
51	Azamgarh	Ramakant Yadav
52	Lalganj (SC)	Leelam Sonkar
53	Bansgaon (SC)	Kamlesh Paswan
54	Deoria	Kalraj Mishra
55	Kushi Nagar	Rajesh Pandey
56	Maharajganj (SC)	Pankaj Chaudhary
57	Sant Kabir Nagar	Sharad Tripathi
58	Basti	Harish Dwivedi
59	Saharanpur	Raghav Lakhanpal
60	Kaisarganj	Brijbhushan Sharan Singh
61	Baharaich (SC)	Savitri Bai Phule
62	Ambedkar Nagar	Hariom Pandey
63	Faizabad	Lalu Singh
64	Barabanki (SC)	Priyanka Rawat
65	Allahabad	Shyama Charan Gupt
66	Phulpur	Keshav Mourya
67	Kaushambi (SC)	Vinok Sonkar
68	Fatehpur	Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti
69	Banda	Bhairon Prasad Mishra
70	Hamirpur (UP)	Pushpendra Singh Chandel
71	Jalaun	Bhanu Verma
72	Kanpur Rural - Akbarpur	Devendra Bhole
73	Kannauj	Subrat Pathak
74	Etawah (SC)	Ashok Dohre
75	Farrukhabad	Mukesh Rajput
76	Pratapgarh	(Apna Dal)
77	Chandauli	Mahendra Nath Pandey
78	Bhadohi	Virendra Singh Mast
79	Mirzapur	Anupriya Patel (Apna Dal)
80	Robartsganj (SC)	Chhote Lal Kharwar

Source: BJP.org

BJP Announces Six-Party Alliance in Tamil Nadu and its Seat Sharing

Chennai: The BJP on Thursday announced the formation of a six-party rainbow alliance for the April 24 Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu, in its first-ever such electoral venture in the State where the turf has been largely dominated by the DMK and the AIADMK.

The announcement about the sealing of the alliance was made by BJP president Rajnath Singh who described it as a ’historic’ moment for Tamil Nadu and also for the country as seven parties had come into NDA-fold.

Flanked by alliance partners, Rajnath Singh told a press conference in Chennai that out of the 39 seats, actor-politician Vijayakant’s DMDK will fight for 14 seats while the PMK and the BJP will field candidates in eight constituencies each.

Vaiko’s MDMK has been allotted seven seats while the IJK and the KMDK have been given one constituency each.

Local BJP leaders were all smiles as the month-long efforts and protracted negotiations in the wake of some of the allies insisting on particular seats fructified as the party seeks to return a sizeable number of MPs from the state towards achieving formation of a Narendra Modi-led NDA government.

Replicating the strategy of the two major Dravidian parties which have been taking up the emotive fishermen and Sri Lankan Tamils issue as a plank, Singh promised these were also on the “top priority” of his party.

“Their (fishermen) release will be our topmost priority and also protecting their livelihood,” he said.

Accusing the UPA of being responsible for the travails faced by Sri Lankan Tamils, he said “under UPA, India was not able to impress Sri Lanka to resolve Tamils issue. NDA will work to impress Sri Lanka as it is also in our security interest.” Singh’s announcement of seat-sharing was made in the presence of actor turned politician Vijayakant, Anbumani Ramadoss (PMK), Vaiko, IJK’s Pachamuthu and KMDK’s Easwaran.

Soon after his arrival in Chennai, Rajnath Singh met with leaders of allies for nearly four hours, giving final touches to the alliance and also ironing out differences among the partners over certain seats.

He managed to convince the PMK to give up the claim on the Salem seat and accommodate the request by the DMDK.

The other national party, the Congress, which used to ride piggy back on the DMK or the AIADMK, has been left to face the polls on its own this time with both shunning it.

Launching a tirade against the Congress-led UPA, Singh charged it with leaving the country’s economy in a “mess” and slammed it over unemployment, inflation and price-rise.

He also attacked at UPA for the spate of scams allegedly involving the ruling coalition and said people were no more prepared to live with the scandals.

“The entire country is yearning for a decisive change. People are determined to unseat UPA. In South, including in Tamil Nadu, new alliances are emerging. People want to see an NDA government with Modi as Prime Minister,” he said.

Following is the seat-sharing agreement announced by Rajnath Singh:

DMDK: Tiruvallur (SC), Central Chennai, North Chennai, Villupuram (SC), Kallakurichi, Salem, Namakkal, Karur, Dindigul, Tiruchirappalli, Cuddalore, Madurai, Tirunelveli and Tiruppur.

BJP: South Chennai, Vellore, Nilagiri (SC), Coimbatore, Tanjavur, Sivagangai, Ramanathapuram, Kanyakumari.

PMK: Arakkonam, Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri, Arani, Chidambaram (SC) Mayiladuthurai, Tiruvannamalai, Nagapattinam (SC).

MDMK: Kancheepuram (SC), Erode, Theni, Virudhunagar, Thoothukudi, Sriperumbudur, Tenkasi (SC).

IJK: Perambalur

KMDK: Pollachi

Source: IndiaTVNews.com