BJP to deny tickets to 125 MPs, hopes to gain pro-incumbency momentum

A small pool of candidates is already in place in the majority of these seats.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

At least 125 sitting BJP MPs will be denied tickets to contest the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, and new faces, even those who are not seen as “senior” enough, will be fielded in place of them. This party strategy, if implemented, will be in line with what the BJP leadership has been doing in the states—giving tickets and opportunities to “fresh” faces who may not necessarily be on the radar of the media and are not seen as a strong enough leader.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had denied tickets to 99 sitting MPs and went on to win 303 seats, up from the 269 seats that it had its MPs on when the polls were held. In 2014 it had won 282 seats, but the tally was reduced to 269 in wake of the deaths of sitting MPs and losses in subsequent byelections.

In 2019, it had carried out a significant course correction by dropping a large number of MPs in all the central, Hindi belt states and in states attached to them.

In Madhya Pradesh, it had dropped 12 MPs, eight in Maharashtra, 13 in Gujarat, nine in Chhattisgarh, eight in Bihar (three were dropped while 5 seats went to Janata Dal United), six in Rajasthan, 23 in Uttar Pradesh. These seven seats saw 79 new BJP faces.
As of today, the BJP has 290 MPs in the Lok Sabha.