Former BJP chief Nitin Gadkari, ex-Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Shanta Kumar, and party's deputy leader in Lok Sabha Gopinath Munde are among the 54 names in BJP's first list of candidates released for Lok Sabha polls.

The list was released last night after a meeting of the party's Central Election Committee. It covers eight states and includes six SCs and six STs, four minorities and two women.

The party's Central Election Committee finalised the list after two hours of deliberations at the BJP headquarters in the presence of top leaders like Narendra Modi, L K Advani, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley.

In Maharashtra, Gadkari will contest for Nagpur Lok Sabha seat and Munde will be in fray in his Beed seat. The party has decided to field Kirit Somaiah from Mumbai North-East instead of Poonam Mahajan, who was vying for the seat.

In Himachal Pradesh, Shanta Kumar will be trying his luck from Kangra while Anurag Thakur will contest from Hamirpur.

Of the 54 candidates finalised today, 17 each are in Maharashtra and West Bengal, six in Odisha, five in Jammu and Kashmir, three in Himachal Pradesh and two each in Goa, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh