BJP releases 3rd list with 36 candidates; Sambit Patra to contest from Puri

Odisha BJP president Basant Kumar Panda has been declared party's candidate for Kalahandi, Suresh Pujari for Bargarh, Nitesh Ganga Deb for Sambalpur and Jayaram Pangi for Koraput parliamentary constituency.

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janta Party late Friday night released its third list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, which constituted of 36 candidates. The party has fielded its national spokesperson Sambit Patra from Puri Lok Sabha constituency putting an end to the speculation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would contest from the pilgrim town. Odisha BJP president Basant Kumar Panda has been declared party's candidate for Kalahandi, Suresh Pujari for Bargarh, Nitesh Ganga Deb for Sambalpur and Jayaram Pangi for Koraput parliamentary constituency. In this list, party has declared 23 candidates from Andhra Pradesh, 6 from Maharashtra, 5 from Odisha, one from Meghalaya and one from Assam. Party in its first list declared names of 184 candidates and one name in its second list. Yesterday, BJP’s central electoral commission held a meeting to decide the names of more Lok Sabha candidates from the party. Meeting had PM Modi, BJP Chief Amit Shah, including many senior party leaders as attendees. The meeting also discussed names of party candidates for Haryana, Himachal, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Goa.

BJP releases list of 36 candidates from Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Maharashtra, Odisha. Girish Bapat to contest from Pune (Maharashtra), Sambit Patra to contest from Puri (Odisha). #LokSabhaElections2019 pic.twitter.com/Ft3C3cl1cX

— ANI (@ANI) March 22, 2019

The party’s first list comprised the names of PM Modi and Amit Shah. PM Modi is set to contest polls from Varanasi and Amit Shah replaced party veteran LK Advani and will be contesting from his constituency- Gandhinagar.