Even before the announcement of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the BJP announced the names of 195 candidates. Interestingly, the BJP also announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest from Varanasi for the third time. The list includes 34 ministers, including Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who have been renominated. However, the BJP does not have a single candidate from Maharashtra in its first list. Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has attacked Modi-Shah over the issue. He also expressed regret over not declaring BJP loyalist Nitin Gadkari as its candidate in the first list.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Shiv Sena's Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray party chief and former state chief minister Uddhav Thackeray is taking a more and more aggressive stand against the BJP government at the Centre. Uddhav Thackeray attacked the BJP at the Samajwadi Sammelan held in Dharavi, Mumbai. "BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are raising slogans of '400 par' for the upcoming elections, I'll watch how they manage to do it", Thackeray said. He also regretted that Nitin Gadkari's name was not on the first list of the BJP.
"The BJP released its first list of 195 candidates. It's an internal matter of his party, I don't have anything to do with it. But the list of 195 people has Narendra Modi's name, Amit Shah's name, and many other names. But we did not know the names of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in the past. Gopinath Munde and Pramod Mahajan introduced us to the Bharatiya Janata Party. Pramod Mahajan is also named as the architect of the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance," Thackeray said.
"After Mahajan and Munde, the one who came with them was Nitin Gadkari. During his tenure in the coalition government from 1995 to 1999, he built 55 flyovers. The Mumbai-Pune Expressway was completed in record time. A man who does a good job, a loyal worker of the BJP and the RSS. Yet Nitin Gadkari's name is not in the first list of BJP," Thackeray said. He also launched a scathing attack on Modi and Shah.
"Now, some will say that the first list of Maharashtra has not been released yet. But a man living in Mumbai, who was accused by the BJP of amassing disproportionate assets, Kripashankar Singh, is on the first list. But the name of loyal Nitin Gadkari is not in the first list," Thackeray said. He further criticized BJP's election campaign and expressed anguish over the state of affairs in Maharashtra and the country.