New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial aspirant L K Advani is among the six candidates whose names were announced on Thursday for contesting the Lok Sabha elections that are due in 2009.

Advani, a sitting MP from Gandhinagar in Gujarat, will once again contest from there. Senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu made the announcement after a meeting of the party's central election commission chaired by BJP president Rajnath Singh.

Announcing the first list of its candidates, Naidu said the others in the fray are cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Siddhu, who will re-contest from Amritsar. Actor-turned-politician Vinod Khanna will also re-contest from Gurdaspur in Punjab.

The others are Sripad Naik, who will contest from Panaji in North Goa and Lt Gen. (retired) T P S Rawat from Pauri-Garhwal in Uttarakhand. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal's son Anurag Thakur will contest from Hamirpur.

Source : IANS