PM Narendra Modi to contest Lok Sabha elections 2019 from Varanasi
The decision that PM Narendra Modi will contest Lok Sabha elections from Varanasi was taken in a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentary board meeting on Friday.
Senior BJP leaders including PM Modi, party president Amit Shah met at the party’s New Delhi today where the decision was taken.
Other veteran BJP leaders such as Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Venkaiah Naidu
and Shivraj Singh Chouhan met on Friday to discuss the election strategy ahead of Lok Sabha polls 2019.
The BJP members also reportedly came to a conclusion that there will be no blanket ban on leaders above 75 years of age. Any candidate who is capable of winning, even if he or she is above 75, will be given a ticket, a source close to the development said.
The party also recently joined hands with AIADMK in Tamil Nadu and has decided to continue its tie-ups with Shiv Sena and Lok Jan Shakti Party and Janata Dal (United) in Maharashtra and Bihar, respectively.
PM Modi contested from Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi and his home state Gujarat’s Vadodara in 2014 and won both of them with a landslide margin. In 2014, the Prime Minister won Vadodara by a margin of 5,70,128 votes and secured 8,45,464 votes of the total 11.63 lakh votes polled in the constituency.
The Election Commission (EC) is yet to announce the dates of the upcoming polls. The polls are likely to be spread over 7-8 phases in April-May, as per the news agency PTI.
