NEW DELHI: Hindutva mascot Narendra Modi was named on Saturday night as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) candidate from the Hindu temple city of Varanasi for next month’s parliamentary race though he is keeping the option of fighting protectively from a safe seat in his home state in Gujarat.

Mr Modi will almost certainly face his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) bête noire in one or both the constituencies for the Lok Sabha poll.

The BJP’s prime ministerial candidate will replace sitting MP and senior party leader Murli Manohar Joshi, who had been resisting the move. Mr Joshi has been shifted to Kanpur.

Party President Rajnath Singh also got his way as he will contest from Lucknow in place of incumbent party MP Lalji Tandon, who too had earlier ruled out changing his constituency for Rajnath Singh.

Mr Singh had won the last election from Ghaziabad.

Senior party leader Arun Jaitley has been fielded from Amritsar constituency in Punjab, BJP general secretary Ananth Kumar said at a press conference while releasing the list of 55 candidates finalised for 12 states.

Mr Jaitley will replace Navjot Singh Sidhu, who was called by the party leadership during the day and offered an option of contesting from three other seats which he refused.

Asked whether Modi could contest from Gujarat also, Mr. Kumar said, “there is every possibility”. Indian Express quoted him as saying the list for

Gujarat would be finalised on March 19, when the seat for senior leader L K Advani will also be announced.

Speculation about Mr. Modi contesting from Varanasi had been rife over the last several days because of which Mr. Joshi had been unhappy and even raised the issue at a meeting of the Central Election Committee recently.

However, the BJP leadership was keen to see Modi contest from the temple town of Varanasi as it hopes that this will boost the party’s electoral prospects in entire UP where 80 Lok Sabha seats are at stake.

Once a forte of BJP, the party’s tally in the state has been dwindling and hit a low of 10 in 2009 polls. It hopes a big swing in its fortune this time round.

The party avoided potential trouble in Bihar by deciding to field actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha from his Patna Saheb seat. Earlier, the party was in two minds on this.