"Were they good for nothing?": Congress questions BJP's decision to drop 42 MPs for LS elections

New Delhi [India], March 2 : After the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dropped 42 MPs in its first candidate list for Lok Sabha polls, Congress leader Pawan Khera asked if they were "good for nothing" and said that the party should give an account of the work done by their MPs, who are nowhere seen on the list.
"We did not understand what it meant when one after another BJP MPs were leaving their positions... But when the list came out, we saw that a lot of names were missing. The BJP leadership is not happy with the work done by them," Khera told ANI.
"Those MPs who did not get the ticket, who will answer about their five years?... Did PM Modi think that they would not win even in his name? Were they good for nothing? The party should give an account of the work done by their sitting MPs, who are not appearing on the list," he added.
The BJP, earlier today, released its first list of 195 candidates for the Lok Sabha polls. The list focussed on major names including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju, and Rajeev Chandrashekhar and Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla.
Of the seven parliamentary seats in the national capital, the party announced names of its first five candidates, fielding former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's daughter Bansuri from New Delhi.
The party has changed its candidates for most of the seats in the national capital.
Currently, the BJP holds all seven Delhi Lok Sabha seats.
The party has fielded Bhojpuri superstar and current party MP Manoj Tiwari from North-East Delhi, Kamaljeet Sehrawat from West Delhi, Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri from South Delhi and Praveen Khandelwal from Chandni Chowk.
Of the five named candidates, only Manoj Tiwari has managed to get a renomination.
Tiwari is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and has been a Member of Parliament (MP) from the North East Delhi constituency since 2014. In 2014, Tiwari joined the BJP and contested the Lok Sabha elections from the North East Delhi constituency. He won the election by a margin of over 3 lakh votes. He was re-elected in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The party is yet to announce candidates for the North Delhi and East Delhi seats.
Earlier today, BJP's sitting MPs including Jayant Sinha, who represents Jharkhand's Hazaribagh constituency, and Gautam Gambhir, representing the East Delhi constituency announced that they would not contest the Lok Sabha polls, and requested the top leadership to "relieve" them of their political duties.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress, which will fight in alliance, are the two other key political parties in Delhi in the fray.
The AAP and the Congress have announced that they will contest the 2024 Lok Sabha election together for all seven seats.
As part of the agreement reached between the ruling party in Delhi and the grand old party, Congress will contest 3 of the 7 Lok Sabha seats in the national capital, while the AAP will field candidates in the remaining 4 constituencies.
The Congress will contest the Chandni Chowk, North East and North West seats in the Lok Sabha elections, while the AAP will contest New Delhi, West Delhi, South Delhi and East Delhi.
The Lok Sabha polls are expected to be held in April-May this year.