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The Parliamentary Board of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday cleared the names of Union Information & Broadcasting Minister Anuarg Thakur to contest Hamirpur parliamentary seat of Himachal Pradesh and sitting Shimla MP Suresh Kashyap to contest Shimla (R) parliamentary seat.
The names of Thakur and Kashyap were announced by General Secretary of BJP Arun Singh after a meeting of the Parliamentary Board presided over by BJP president JP Nadda and attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi.
Names of seventy two candidates were announced in the second list of the party candidates for the coming parliament election. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari would contest from Nagpur and former Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar from Karnal.
Anurag Thakur is MP from Hamirpur since 2008 and would be contesting the parliament election for the fifth time now.
Thakur was elected in 2008 by-election after his father Prem Kumar Dhumal vacated the parliament seat on becoming the state Chief Minister. He was elected MP in 2008, 2009, 2014 and 2019 .
Similarly, Suresh Kashyap has been elected twice as MLA in 2012 and 2017 from Pachhad Assembly constituency and Shimla parliament seat in 2019 parliament election.This would be his second parliamentary election.
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