New Delhi, Mar 24: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday announced 111 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, dropping Varun Gandhi from the Pilibhit Lok Sabha seat and retaining his mother, Maneka Gandhi.

The party released its fifth list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections on Sunday.

Former Union Minister Maneka Gandhi has been once again fielded from Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP dropped Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh and allotted the seat to former Congress leader Jitin Prasada.

The party has released the names of the candidates for the Lok Sabha seats of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan, Haryana, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Sikkim, Telangana, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.

Some notable names include Giriraj Singh, set to contest from Bihar's Begusarai, Nityanand Rai from Ujiarpur, and Ravi Shankar Prasad from Patna Sahib.

New joinee Naveen Jindal will contest from Haryana's Kurukshetra, while Sita Soren is the candidate for Dumka (Jharkhand).

Tapas Roy is the candidate for Kolkata Uttar, Dilip Ghosh for Bardhaman-Durgapur, and Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who recently resigned as a judge of the Calcutta High Court, will contest from Tamluk.

Notably, Ashwini Choubey has been dropped from Buxar (Bihar), with Mithilesh Tiwari replacing him instead. Varun Gandhi has also been dropped from Pilibhit.

Interestingly, the party has fielded actor Kangana Ranaut and Arun Govil from Mandi and Meerut seats respectively for the upcoming general election.

Ranaut is a popular Bollywood actress while Govil played the role of Lord Ram in the popular TV series, Ramayan.

The party's popular spokesperson Sambit Patra will again contest from Odisha's Puri seat, which he lost in the previous Lok Sabha polls.

The parliamentary elections for the 543 constituencies will be conducted in seven phases, commencing on April 19 and concluding on June 1. Vote counting is scheduled for June 4. (ANI)

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