LS Polls 2024: BJP releases 7th list, Navneet Rana fielded from Maharashtra's Amravati

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday released its seventh list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. The party named Navneet Rana for the Amravati constituency in Maharashtra. For Karnataka's Chitradurga seat, the saffron party has fielded Govind Karjol. 

Navneet Rana is the sitting MP from Amravati. In 2019, she bagged the seat as an Independent candidate by defeating Shiv Sena's Anandrao Adsul. 

In April 2022, Mumbai Police lodged another FIR against Navneet Rana after she and her husband were arrested for allegedly "creating enmity between different groups" over their threats to recite the Hanuman Chalisa outside then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray's private residence.

In Maharashtra, the BJP is contesting in alliance with Ajit Pawar's NCP and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena. 

BJP-JDS alliance in Karnataka

In Karnataka, the BJP is contesting the Lok Sabha elections in alliance with JD(S). As per the arrangement, the JD(S) will be contesting in three seats --Mandya, Hassan and Kolar.  

JD(S) had earlier formed governments in coalition with Congress for 14 months from May 2018, with Kumaraswamy as the Chief Minister. Both parties had fought the 2019 Lok Sabha polls together and got just one seat each, while BJP bagged 25 seats and even ensured that an independent supported by it won in Mandya. 

According to political observers, for the BJP-JD(S) alliance to click, it goes without saying that ground-level coordination and understanding among their workers and transfer of votes to each other are essential, which did not happen in the case of the regional party's alliance with Congress. 

JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy said there will be a joint coordination committee and workers' meeting of both parties from Mysuru and Chamarajanagar Lok Sabha constituencies in Mysuru on Wednesday. "I will be participating in this meeting. It will be attended by BJP leaders too," he said, adding that similar meetings will be held in Koppal and Tumakuru and directions have been issued to other districts too to organise such meetings.

(With inputs from PTI)