Jammu, Mar 02: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) high command has decided to field its two sitting MPs – Dr Jitendra Singh and Jugal Kishore Sharma – from the two Lok Sabha seats of the Jammu region. However, hectic lobbying is still ongoing for the newly created Rajouri-Poonch-Anantnag Lok Sabha seat, created after delimitation.
The entire focus of the BJP is to win this seat, which includes areas of both the Jammu region and the Kashmir region. J&K BJP leaders desiring the Rajouri-Poonch-Anantnag Lok Sabha seat have been camping in Delhi and are engaged in hectic lobbying within the J&K unit of the BJP, according to party sources.
“J&K BJP President, Ravinder Raina is the frontrunner for the Rajouri-Poonch-Anantnag Lok Sabha seat, as he was also an MLA from this region,” they said.
The BJP announced the first list of candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on Saturday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will again contest from Varanasi. The first list includes 34 central ministers and MoS, as well as the Lok Sabha Speaker, announced BJP National General Secretary, Vinod Tawde. He also announced that both Dr Jitendra Singh and Jugal Kishore Sharma will again contest the Lok Sabha elections in their respective constituencies.
Dr Jitendra, a Union Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, is the sitting MP from the Kathua-Udhampur-Doda Lok Sabha seat. He won this seat in the 2014 Parliamentary elections by defeating former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), Ghulam Nabi Azad.
In the next Parliamentary elections in 2019, Dr Jitendra Singh again won the Kathua-Udhampur-Doda Lok Sabha seat by defeating the Congress candidate, Vikramaditya Singh, the grandson of Maharaja Hari Singh.
Similarly, Jugal Kishore Sharma has won the Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha seat in both the 2014 and 2019 Parliamentary elections.
Meanwhile, sources in the BJP revealed that the sitting MPs of the Jammu region have again been given a mandate by the party, considering their performance and report card on the implementation of various centrally sponsored schemes.
