BJP names 9 more candidates, fields Santosh Pandey from Raman Singh's home turf in Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh

Mar 24 (AZINS) The BJP on Sunday released a list of its nine more Lok Sabha election candidates, taking the total number of names announced by it to 306. Six candidates are for Chhattisgarh and one each for Meghalaya, Maharashtra and Telangana.

The party had earlier announced that none of its nine sitting Lok Sabha members from Chhattisgarh will be fielded in the polls, a move aimed at any perceived anti-incumbency they may have after the saffron party suffered a big defeat to the Congress in the assembly polls.

Putting to rest speculation on whether former Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh will be fielded from his home constituency Rajnandgaon or not, the BJP named Santosh Pandey its candidate from the seat.

It has fielded Jyoti Nand Dubey from Korba, Arun Saw from Bilaspur, Vijay Baghel from Durg and Sunil Soni from Raipur in the state.