The Bharatiya Janata Party is looking for 50 former and present IAS-IPS officers to field its candidates in the Lok Sabha elections to be held in 2024.
For this, the party’s National General Secretary BL Santosh and Secretary Vinod Tawde have been travelling across the country. The names of former IAS officers Praveen Pardesi, Radheshyam Mopalwar and former CP Parambir Singh are doing the rounds as potential candidates from Maharashtra.
Pardesi, a senior IAS officer currently works with the NITI Aayog and may be fielded from the Vidarbha seat. Pardesi’s last posting was in the national capital and is known for taking swift action during the earthquake in Latur. He was also a contender for the post of Chief Secretary but missed out. The former officer is known to be close to Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis.
Another big name is Mopalwar, who is currently handling the government’s infrastructure war. He oversees the Mumbai-Nagpur prosperity highway and has been eyed by both the Shiv Sena’s Shinde faction and the BJP. He might be picked up to contest the Parbhani or Hingoli seat. Mopalwar has worked at grassroot level and was popular with the Pani Panchayat in Marathwada. Finally, Parambir Singh, a former Mumbai Police Commissioner, is very close to the BJP. While several allegations were levelled against him, he eventually received a clean chit which ended his suspension. There are speculations that Singh might be made a candidate in a Gujjar-dominated seat in Haryana or Rajasthan, instead of in Maharashtra. Former IRS NCB Zonal Director Samir Wankhede also met senior politicians and the sangh pracharak at Nagpur few days ago.
While the party can also field Rajya Sabha members in the Lok Sabha elections, tickets of many present MPs may also be cut. The reason the BJP is narrowing in on Maharashtra is that the state has the second highest number of Lok Sabha seats after Uttar Pradesh. In the last Lok Sabha elections, the BJP contested seats in alliance with Shiv Sena and won 42 out of the 48 seats. However, following the Sena’s separation, three major political parties of the Mahavikas Aghadi (MVA) are putting up a united front.
The BJP recently also analysed the perfomances of 22 of its MPs. The party has reportedly made up its mind to show eight MPs the door- this number may increase in the future. Currently, the party is looking for new faces that are known to the people. So far, the BJP’s experiment of giving tickets to government officials has been successful
