The Bharatiya Janata Party declared its first list of 184 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on Thursday evening.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest from Varanasi, while BJP president Amit Shah will contest from Gandhinagar. Union home minister Rajnath Singh will contest the elections from Lucknow with Nitin Gadkari contesting from Nagpur.

Here are the live updates:

10:35pm IST Defence minister tweets best wishes for BJP candidates Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman tweets best wishes for the BJP candidates To all those contesting as @BJP4India candidates in the forthcoming elections to Lok Sabha, my best wishes. We shall work together to have #PhirEkBaarModiSarkar — Chowkidar Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) March 21, 2019





9:55pm IST BJP names five candidates from Tamil Nadu in its first list Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan, state party chief Tamilisai Soundararajan and national secretary H Raja, known for his rabble rousing speeches, are among the five candidates announced by the BJP Thursday for Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu.





9:20pm IST Congress releases 7th list of LS candidates Congress releases list of candidates for 3 Lok Sabha constituencies and 45 assembly constituencies in Andhra Pradesh.: ANI Congress releases list of candidates for 3 Lok Sabha constituencies and 45 assembly constituencies in Andhra Pradesh. pic.twitter.com/QOTyLrXgZm — ANI (@ANI) March 21, 2019





9:14pm IST ‘Will work hard and bring development to the area’: Hema Malini Hema Malini, who has been named by the BJP from the Mathura Lok Sabha seat, told ANI, “People wanted me to contest from here again, I’m thankful to Amit Shah ji and Modi ji for choosing me again. I will work hard and bring development to the area. I’m not like other politicians, people here like my work.”





9:11pm IST Sujay Vikhe-Patil nominated from Ahmednagar LS seat Sujay Vikhe Patil, son of senior Congress leader and leader of Opposition in Maharashtra assembly, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil , has been named by the BJP as candidate from Ahmednagar seat. Sujay recently left Congress and joined BJP.





9pm IST Telangana CM KCR opts out Lok Sabha elections Telanagana chief minister and TRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao won’t be contesting the Lok Sabha elections. He had hinted earlier that he was ready to play a bigger role at the national level. KCR released the list of candidates for the LS polls on Thursday evening, retaining seven MPs, dropping four and fielding 10 new faces.





8:41pm IST Three sitting MPs from Assam dropped The BJP named candidates for eight out of 14 LS seats in Assam. Three sitting MPs have been dropped from BJP’s first list of candidates. Alliance partners Asom Gana Parishad will contest from 3 seats and Bodo People’s Front from one.





8:34pm IST Smriti Irani thanks PM Modi, Shah for nominating her from Amethi Smriti Irani thanked the PM Modi and party president Amit Shah for giving her the responsibility of contesting from Amethi. अमेठी से लोकसभा चुनाव लड़ने की ज़िम्मेदारी देने के लिए प्रधानमंत्री @narendramodi जी, अध्यक्ष @AmitShah जी एवं संगठन के सभी वरिष्ठ नेताओं का धन्यवाद करती हूँ। अमेठी से कमल खिलाकर संसद में भाजपा को मज़बूत करना मेरे लिए गर्व की बात होगी।



अमेठी है तैयार, #PhirEkBaarModiSarkar https://t.co/9wBN2TZOq4 — Chowkidar Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) March 21, 2019





8:32pm IST Let us all fight together: Smriti Irani congratulates candidates Union minister and BJP candidate from Amethi, Smriti Irani, tweets out congratulations to PM Modi on being renominated from Varanasi. In another tweet, she urged all candidates to work together to ensure party’s success. Congratulations to all the candidates announced by @BJP4India. Let us together work for #PhirEkBaarModiSarkar by ensuring lotus blooms in every constituency. — Chowkidar Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) March 21, 2019





8:29pm IST Two Cong defectors in Karnataka in BJP’s first list Two Congress defectors from Karnataka have been named in BJP’s first list. Umesh Jadhav, the rebel Congress MLA, to go up against Mallikarjun Kharge in Gulbarga and A Manju, former MLA, to take on Prajwal Revanna, grandson of HD Deve Gowda, in Hassan.





8:24pm IST Union Minister Jitendra Singh to file nomination on Friday: PTI Union Minister Jitendra Singh, whose name is in BJP’s first list of candidtes for Lok Sabha elections, will file his nomination papers Friday from Jammu and Kashmir’s Udhampur constituency, PTI reported. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal is likely to accompany him to file the nomination papers, a senior leader said Thursday.





8:18pm IST Will win with better margin this time: Gadkari Union Minister Nitin Gadkari told ANI. “Party has expressed its faith in me, I will win with an even better margin this time. People of Nagpur supported me last time as well. They are happy with our work, we will do even better after getting elected again.”





8:15pm IST BJP’s first list from Odisha includes Jay Panda’s name from Kendrapada BJP candidates for Odisha: Baijayant Jay Panda to contest from Kendrapara, Aparajita Sarangi from Bhubaneswar, Rudra Narayan Pany from Dhenkanal, Pratap Sarangi from Balasore, Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo from Balangir. Jay Panda recently joined the BJP.





8:13pm IST Congress leader Surjewala tweets about LK Advani’s exclusion Mintues after BJP’s first list was announced, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala tweeted about the exclusion of veteran BJP leader LK Advani’s name. पहले श्री लाल कृष्ण अडवाणी को ज़बरन ‘मार्ग दर्शक’ मंडल में भेज दिया,



अब उनकी संसदीय सीट भी छीन ली।



जब मोदीजी बुज़ुर्गों का आदर नहीं करते,

वह जनता के विश्वास का आदर कहाँ करेंगे?



भाजपा भगाओ,

देश बचाओ।#bjpfirstlist — Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) March 21, 2019





8:05pm IST BJP names 14 of its sitting MPs in Karnataka 14 of 15 sitting MPs in state named in BJP’s first list. Only one, Koppal MP Karadi Sanganna, not named. All three union ministers from state - - Ananth Kumar Hegde (Uttara Kannada), Ramesh Jigjinagi (Bijapur) and DV Sadananda Gowda (Bengaluru North) retain their seats. Biggest exclusion in first list was Bengaluru South, where former union minister HN Ananth Kumar’s wife Tejaswini, was expected to be named as candidate





8pm IST Names from 20 states declared The BJP announced its candidates from 20 states, including Uttar Prdesh, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura.





7:55pm IST Anantkumar Hegde to contest from North Kannada BJP candidates for Karnataka include Anantkumar Hegde who will contest from North Kannada, Sadanand Gowda from Bangalore North, B Y Raghavendra from Shimoga, Prathap Sinha from Mysore. In Kerala, Kummanam Rajasekharan will contest from Thiruvananthapuram and KJ Alphons from Ernakulam





7:53pm IST All 17 seats in Bihar cleared, names to be announced later 20 states covered in the first list. All 17 seats of Bihar have been cleared by central election committee. The NDA will declare these names, says Nadda.





7:52pm IST Babul Supriyo renominated from Asansol Union minister Babul Supriyo renominated from Asansol LS seat. Another Union minister Kiren Rijuju from Arunachal West.





7:50pm IST Poonam Mahajan named from Mumbai North Central In Maharashtra, Subhash Bhamre to contest from Dhule, Hansraj Ahir from Chandrapur, and Poonam Mahajan from Mumbai North Central.





7:46pm IST Rajasthan candidates declared Union minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore from Jaipur Rural, GS Shekhawat from Jodhpur, Arjun Lal Meena from Meena, CP Joshi from Chittorgarh , Dushyant Singh from Jhalawar-Baran--all seats in Rajasthan





7:44 pm IST BJP names candidates for J-K seats Jugal Kishore to contest from Jammu LS seat, Dr Jitendra Singh from Udhampur, and Sofi Yousuf from Anantnag, Khalid Jehangir will contest from Srinagar





7:40pm IST VK Singh to contest from Ghaziabad Union ministers V K Singh to contest form Ghaziabad, Mahesh Sharma from Gautam Buddh Nagar, says JP Nadda





7:35pm IST Home Minister Rajnath Singh to contest from Lucknow Home Minister Rajnath Singh will contest from from Lucknow, Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur, Hema Malini from Mathura, Smriti Irani from Amethi





7:35pm IST BJP declares first list of 184 candidates, PM Modi to contest from Varanasi Union minister JP Nadda begins briefing the press about the central election committee meeting. In all, 184 candidates to be declared today...PM Modi to contest from Varanasi, and Amit Shah from Gandhinagar.





7:15pm IST Congress has already released six lists for LS polls While the BJP is yet to announce its first list, the Congress has already announced candidates for 146 Lok Sabha constituencies so far. The first list of 11 candidates, announced on March 8, include Congress president Rahul Gandhi and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi from Rae Bareli and party president Rahul Gandhi from Amethi.





7:00pm IST No sitting MP from Chhattisgarh to be renominated In a major decision, the BJP on Tuesday announced it will drop its all 10 incumbent MPs from Chhattisgarh and replace them with new faces in the Lok Sabha polls. The party decision means that Union minister Vishnu Deo Sai and seven times Lok Sabha member and former Union minister Ramesh Bais will not be fielded in the polls.



