NEW DELHI: The BJP’s Central Election Committee (CEC) met for the third time at the party headquarters on Saturday to finalise candidates for the remaining Lok Sabha seats.
The protracted meeting took up for discussion potential candidates and considered the possibility of repeating many MPs and Union ministers following feedback received from state units.
The third CEC meeting was held soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned from the Bhutan trip. The CEC members were closeted with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and JP Nadda. The criteria for potential candidates included their “suitability as per social equation” and “winnability as per their public connect and political standing” in line with the party’s target of winning 370 seats.
“The names shortlisted in recent rounds of state core committees’ meetings were discussed for various states including UP, Bihar, Punjab and other states. The fifth list of candidates after the approval of the CEC is likely to come by tomorrow as the nomination for the first phase of LS elections has already begun,” said a senior party leader.
On Saturday, sources said, the discussions were held on the candidates in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Odisha, West Bengal, and Bihar.
“The CEC members shared their opinion before the PM on the names of many sitting MPs. Prominent among them whose candidatures are learnt to have been discussed are Varun Gandhi (Pilibhit), Menaka Sanjay Gandhi, VK Sigh , Brij Bhusan Singh (former president of WFI) and some Union ministers,” said a source.
“As the alliance in Odisha could not materialise, the party also discussed the potential candidates for that state too. It is expected that some new faces would be fielded in the state,” said a BJP source.
He said the party was considering candidates at least in 400 Lok Sabha seats.
“PM Modi looks at all factors that match with emerging political situations and social equations before giving approvals along with other members of the CEC. There is a possibility that only a few MPs would be dropped to accommodate new faces or newly inducted members,” said a source, adding that candidates may be finalised for 90-100 LS seats.
Hours before the CEC met, Shah and Nadda reportedly briefed the Prime Minister about seat-sharing with the allies as well as a breakdown of talks with some regional parties in states like Odisha.
The BJP has so far fielded 291 candidates out of the expected figure of nearly 400 candidates. In the first phase of the list after the CEC meeting earlier, the candidates for 195 LS seats were announced followed by 72 candidates in the second list, 9 in the 3rd list and 15 in the fourth list.
Prominent leaders who are in fray after the first and second meetings of the CEC are Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi, Amit Shah from Gandhinagar, Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajnath Singh, Smriti Irani, Piyush Goyal, Anurag Thakur, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Arjun Meghwal, L Murgan, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, V Muraleedharan, and others. Among the candidates in the fray, three are former chief ministers and one a former governor.
The fifth list of candidates for over 90-115 Lok Sabha seats after the approval by CEC on Saturday is expected to be released on Sunday.
