Hoping to get a massive first mover advantage as it works towards its target of winning 370 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the BJP on Saturday released its first list of 195 Lok Sabha candidates from 16 States and two Union Territories (UT), days after a marathon meeting of the party Central Election Committee (CEC) chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

As many as 34 Ministers and two former Chief Ministers are on the list, which also includes 28 women, 47 leaders under the age of 50, 57 members from the OBC community, 27 from Scheduled Castes community and 18 from Scheduled Tribe community. Of the 195 candidates, 51 are from the all important State of Uttar Pradesh, 20 from West Bengal and five from Delhi.

The list includes the party heavyweights PM Narendra Modi, who will be contesting from Varanasi for the third time, Home Minister Amit Shah, who will be fielded again from Gandhinagar in Gujarat, Union Women and Child Welfare Minister Smriti Irani from Amethi, Rajnath Singh from Lucknow, and Bhupender Yadav from Rajasthan Alwar.

Sushma Swaraj daughter Bansuri Swaraj, will make her poll debut from the New Delhi seat, Kamaljeet Sehrawat will contest from the from West Delhi, MLA Ramvir Singh Bidhuri from South Delhi, Praveen Khadelwal from Chandni Chowk, while Manoj Tiwari has been retained from the North East Delhi. The list also included two former Chief Ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan,  Biplab Deb - as well as Om Birla  from Kota in Rajasthan.

Besides Rajnath, and Yadav, the Union Ministers whose names have been announced by the BJP in the first list of candidates include Mansukh Mandaviya from Porbandar in Gujarat, Sarbananda Sonowal from Dibrugarh, Kiren Rijiju from Arunachal West, Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna, Rajasthan, Arjun Ram Meghwal  from Bikaner, G Kishan Reddy from Sikandrabad, Arjun Munda from Khunti, Jharkhand and Smriti Irani from Amethi, Purshottam Rupala from Rajkot and Jitendra Singh from Udhampur.

Thiruvananthapuram is expected to see an interesting contest as another Rajya Sabha member and Minister, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, has been named from the seat, which is held by the Congress Shashi Tharoor. Among the other key candidates, Hema Malini will be fielded from Mathura, a constituency she has represented since 2014.

In a surprising move amid the farmers protest, Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra Teni will contest from the Lakhmipur Kheri constituency again. Mr Teni son, Ashish, had been jailed for his alleged involvement in mowing down four farmers in Lakhmipur Kheri in 2021 and justice for the victims has been one of the key demands in the ongoing protests against the Union government.

Of the 195 list, the BJP has fielded 52 candidates in Uttar Pradesh, including PM Modi; 24 in Madhya Pradesh; 20 in West Bengal; 15 each in Gujarat and Rajasthan; 12 in Kerala; 11 each in Assam, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh; 9 in Telangana; 5 in Delhi; 3 in Uttarakhand; 2 each in Jammu & Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh; and 1 each in Goa, Tripura, Andaman & Nicobar and Daman & Diu.

Announcing the list, BJP National General Secretary Vinod Tawde said the party is confident that it would form the government for the third term under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a much bigger mandate. Tawde said the party has been taking efforts to increase the spread of not just the BJP, but the NDA also.

"Not just the BJP, even the people in this country wants "fir ek baar Modi sarkar," he said. Tawde also said the party has been working on further expanding its footprint across states and also to strengthen the ruling National Democratic Alliance. Modi has set a target for the BJP to win at least 370 seats on its own in this Lok Sabha election and more than 400 for the NDA.

Sitting MP Lallu Singh has been retained from Ayodhya; Bhojpuri singer and actor Pawan Singh has been fielded from Asansol in West Bengal.  In Uttar Pradesh, the party has fielded former BSP MP Ritesh Pandey from Ambedkar Nagar Lok Sabha seat in UP, while Hema Malini, Ravi Kishan, Ajay Mishra Teni, Mahesh Sharma, SPS Baghel and Sakshi Maharaj are among those being repeated from their seats. In Jharkhand, former Congress MP Geeta Koda has been fielded from Singhbhum (ST reserved) and Nishikant Dubey from Godda. Senior Congress leader AK Anthony's son Anil K Anthony will contest from Pathanamthitta in Kerala; CR Patil from Navsari seat

The list saw major changes for Delhi with Ramesh Bidhuri, Parvesh Verma, Meenakshi Lekhi and Harsh Vardhan being dropped from their respective seats, while Sadhvi Pragya Thakur was also dropped from her Bhopal seat. Besides Lekhi, John Barla is another Union minister who has been dropped from their seat.

Hours before the party released its first list, two of its sitting MPs- Jayant Sinha and Gautam Gambhir - have made a request to BJP President JP Nadda expressing their desire to be relieved of his electoral duties. While Sinha claimed he wanted to focus on his efforts on combating global climate change in Bharat and around the world, Gambhir expressed his desire to focus on upcoming cricket commitments.