NEW DELHI: After hours of deliberations, the BJP at a meeting of its Central Election Committee (CEC) on Thursday reportedly cleared the names of potential candidates for over 125 Lok Sabha seats, including many high-profile ones such as Varanasi, Gandhinagar and Lucknow.
The CEC has 550-plus members and includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party chief JP Nadda, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and CMs and deputy CMs of BJP-ruled states. The meeting went on for hours till late in the evening.
Party sources said if the first list of candidates is not decided till Thursday night, the party may release it the next day.
A prelude to the CEC meeting took place at PM’s residence with Nadda, Shah and Modi going into a huddle. This meeting continued for nearly three hours where points of approvals for candidates were reportedly discussed.
The trio later went to the party headquarters. The CMs and deputy CMs of all BJP-ruled states attended the CEC meeting till late night.
The CEC, which puts the seal of approval on the party nominees for various elections reportedly approved the names of potential candidates for 100-125 LS seats in 18 states after hours of discussions.
Party sources said the CEC members conceded that the degree of “winnability” should be the primary factor for the selection of candidates. The Prime Minister reportedly emphasized the need for fielding candidates with a higher degree of winnability, a clean political background and a proven interface with the people at a time when the NDA is targeting 400-plus seats, with BJP alone projecting itself to cross 370 seats, out of the total 543.
The party chiefs of UP, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Kerala, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat and other states attended the meeting of the party’s apex decision-making body with the lists of candidates. “The talks over the final names for 100-125 seats, including some of the VIP constituencies like Varanasi, Gandhinagar and Lucknow, went for hours with each member putting forth his suggestions. The PM and home minister were among others who suggested many points,” said a senior party functionary.
He said there was no doubt on the continuation of Modi from Varanasi, Shah from Gandhinagar in Gujarat, Rajnath Singh from Lucknow. It was also discussed that Nitin Gadkari will contest from Nagpur, Smriti Irani from Amethi, Anurag Thakur from Hamirpur, Prahlad Joshi from Dharwad. Sources also said BJP leaders Ravi Kishan will fight from Gorakhpur, Subrat Pathak from Kannauj, and Sadhvi Niranjan from Fatehpur.
“It is being said there were prolonged discussions on candidates for seats identified as weak in the South and West Bengal,” said a BJP leader.
The names shortlisted could be announced as early as Friday or a day later for more than 125 seats including dozens of those identified as weak ones.
Sources said the CEC also discussed the feedback of shortlisted candidates. It is believed that the party may field many RS MPs in the LS elections this time in addition to bringing new faces in the fray, also depending upon their inability.
25-30% of sitting MPs likely to be dropped
The BJP is learnt to have decided to drop several sitting MPs to make way for new faces this time, for reasons ranging from poor winnability, poor connect with people and old age, to changed social and caste equations in their respective seats. Sources hinted that it would not be surprising if the party drops around 25-30% of total sitting MPs this time.