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Advani, Vajpayee among 202 cleared for LS poll

Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Bharatiya Janata Party president Lal Kishinchand Advani, Rajmata Vijayaraj Scindia and former Delhi chief minister Madan Lal Khurana figure in the first list of 202 candidates released by the party today.

The party's central election committee, which met for three days from January 10, cleared the names from 15 states.

The list includes 16 women and two Muslims -- Syed Shahnawaz Hussain (Bihar) and Din Mohammad Chita (Jammu and Kashmir).

The CEC has renominated Vajpayee for the Lucknow seat while Advani will contest from Gandhinagar. Former Khurana has been fielded from Delhi Sadar.

Nine of the sitting members have been dropped from the list. Prominent among those denied ticket is Hitvada editor Banwari Lal Purohit from Nagpur.

Former chief minister Shanta Kumar, state unit chief Prem Dhumal and Maheshwar Singh will contest the Lok Sabha election from Himachal Pradesh.

Also figuring in the list is Kamal Choudhary, who left the Congress recently to join the party. He will contest from Hoshiarpur (Punjab) from where he had lost narrowly to Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Kanshi Ram in the last elections.

Another former Congressman to get the nomination is Dilip Singh Bhuria who will defend his Jhabua (reserved) constituency in Madhya Pradesh.

Releasing the list, party general secretary Pramod Mahajan said the CEC would meet again on January 20 and 21 to finalise the remaining list.

Replying to questions, he said the case of the Jalandhar seat, from where Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral is contesting, was not not taken up.

Former party president Murli Manohar Joshi will defend his Allahabad seat, while former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Sunder Lal Patwa has been renominated from Chindwara. Party vice-president K Janakrishna Murthy has been fielded from Madras south.

Party general secretaries Pramod Mahajan and Sushma Swaraj will again contest from Bombay north east and south Delhi respectively.

As per the list, the statewise break up of the candidates is: Assam (8), Bihar (29), Gujarat (14), Haryana (6), Himachal Pradesh (4), Jammu and Kashmir (3), Karnataka (12), Kerala (18), Madhya Pradesh (31), Maharashtra (16), Manipur (1), Punjab (2), Tamil Nadu (4), Delhi (6), Uttar Pradesh (47).

The CEC also cleared 62 candidates each for the Himachal Pradesh and Tripura assemblies, nine for the Meghalaya assembly and three for the Kerala assembly.

UNI

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