Advani appeared complete on Thursday with the party replacing him with Amit Shah as its candidate for the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat. The BJP announced its first list of 184 candidates across 20 states for the April-May general election, with the highlight being the replacement of Advani, 91, with party president Shah, now being increasingly seen as Narendra Modi’s eventual successor. “Our glorious Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest the election from Varanasi and our party president Amit Shah will contest from Gandhinagar,” health minister J.P. Nadda said while announcing the names of the nominees. In 1996, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee represented the constituency, but since 1998 Advani had had an uninterrupted run. Many in the BJP predicted that Shah would be a powerful minister if Modi returned to power.

Source: The Telegraph March 21, 2019 20:15 UTC