The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday unveiled its fifth list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections which includes prominent figures such as Naveen Jindal contesting from Kurukshetra in Haryana, actress Kangana Ranaut vying for the Mandi seat in Himachal Pradesh, and Jagadish Shettar competing from Belgaum in Karnataka. The party has also fielded veteran actor Arun Govil, who played the character of Lord Ram in Ramanand Sagar's 'Ramayan' from Uttar Pradesh's Meerut.
4th list comprises 15 candidates
Earlier, on Friday, the party had disclosed its fourth list comprising 15 candidates, predominantly focusing on constituencies in Puducherry and Tamil Nadu. Among them, notable mentions include A Namassivayam from Puducherry, actor-politician Raadhika Sarathkumar from Virudhnagar, Pon V Balaganapathy from Tiruvallur (SC), RC Paul Kangaraj from Chennai North, and P Karthiyayini from Chidambaram (SC). It's worth noting that P Karthiyayini, a former AIADMK leader, had joined the BJP in 2017.
Moving back to Tamil Nadu, in its third list of nine candidates released on March 21, BJP nominated former Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan for the Chennai South constituency. Soundararajan had recently resigned from the post of Telangana governor.
The list also features prominent personalities like L Murugan, who will contest from Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai from Coimbatore, and Pon Radhakrishnan from Kanyakumari.
First list of 195 candidates
Earlier announcements by the BJP included their first list of 195 candidates on March 2, notably highlighting Prime Minister Narendra Modi's candidacy from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, for the third consecutive term.
The subsequent release of the second list on March 13 comprised 75 candidates, among whom were 11 Union Ministers including Nitin Gadkari, Anurag Singh Thakur, and Pralhad Joshi.
In the initial list, candidates for various constituencies across states such as Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Kerala, Telangana, Assam, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Daman and Diu were announced, showcasing the party's widespread electoral strategy.
