Sanjay Tandon, son of former PM Chandrashekhar, is chosen by the BJP for Chandigarh and Ballia

Sanjay Tandon was named by the BJP as its candidate for the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat in its eleventh list of candidates, which was made public today. The party decided not to retain the two-term MP, Kirron Kher and instead chose a domestic leader to represent the VIP group rather than an imported star.

Sanjay, sixty, is the son of the late RSS stalwart Balramji Das Tandon, who founded the Jan Sangh, served as governor of Chhattisgarh from 2014 to 2018, six times as an MLA, and four times as a minister.

Sanjay was chosen as the candidate for Chandigarh because, according to sources, he had far higher ratings than the other candidates. This was taken into consideration by the party, even though there was a strong desire to run an outsider. From 2010 to 2020, Sanjay led the Chandigarh unit as its president for the longest period of time.

The inclusion of former PM Chandrashekhar’s son Neeraj Shekhar as a candidate from Ballia in lieu of local strongman and four-term MP Virendra Singh; the nomination of BJP’s only turbaned Sikh MP SS Ahluwalia against TMC’s sitting MP Shatrughan Sinha in Asansol; and the removal of sitting MP Rita Bahuguna from Allahabad (Prayagraj) in favor of Neeraj Tripathi, son of former Governor KN Tripathi, are among the other highlights of the list, which includes seven candidates from UP and one each from Chandigarh and West Bengal’s Asansol.

The BJP has put up Paras Nath Rai, who runs a sizable local network of educational institutions, against Afzal Ansari, the brother of murdered mobster Mukhtar Ansari, the current MP for the Samajwadi Party in Ghazipur. In the 2019 local elections, Ansari, running as a combined SP-BSP candidate, beat Manoj Sinha, the incumbent LG of Jammu and Kashmir for the BJP, in Ghazipur.

The state tourism minister, Jaiveer Thakur, is a former leader of the SP, and the BJP has put her up against Akhilesh Yadav, the head of the SP, who is defending the Yadav family bastion of Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has nominated local MLA Praveen Patel in lieu of its current MP Keshari Devi Patel in Phulpur, the seat of two late prime ministers, Jawaharlal Nehru and VP Singh.

Thus far, 35% of current MPs have resigned.

BJP has dropped approximately 108 (more than 35%) of its 303 current MPs in favor of 428 candidates on 10 lists so far.

Waiting for Rae Bareli’s seat

The BJP is still holding out hope for two UP seats: Kaiserganj, held by former WFI leader Brij Bhushan Singh, and Rae Bareli, represented by former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in the last Lok Sabha.