With less than three weeks to go for the Assembly polls in five states to start, the BJP has asked party chief J P Nadda to decide on names of remaining candidates for three states – Punjab, Goa and Uttarakhand, according to party sources quoted by news agency ANI. The Indian Express, quoting sources, reported that in a high-level meeting on Monday, the BJP finalised the remaining candidates for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, with around 80 sitting MLAs likely to be dropped and seats changed for nearly a dozen in total.
The party’s core committee met at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi, with Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in attendance. The Central Election Committee, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will meet on Tuesday to finalise the list.
In a big blow to the Congress ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, senior leader RPN Singh quit the party on Tuesday amid speculations of him joining the BJP. In his resignation letter addressing party president Sonia Gandhi, Singh thanked the party for giving him the “opportunity to serve the nation, people and the party”. Read More
Central Election Committee (CEC) of Congress to meet via video conferencing today for the selection of candidates for Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.
Supreme Court issues notice to the Centre and Election Commission of India seeking direction to seize election symbols and deregister political parties that promised to distribute irrational freebies from public funds.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday hit out at Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav over his recent remark that Pakistan was a “political enemy” of India and the issue was used by BJP for political gains. Without naming the former UP CM, Adityanath said that the remarks on Pakistan and Jinnah showed their mindset. Read More
The NDA on Monday announced the seat-sharing pact for Punjab where the BJP will contest 65 seats while Captain Amarinder Singh's Punjab Lok Congress will field candidates on 37 seats. SAD (Sanyukt), another NDA partner led by Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, will fight on 15 seats.
The Congress on Monday released its list of 30 star campaigners for the first-phase assembly election in Uttar Pradesh, naming party president Sonia Gandhi, former prime minister Manmohan Singh, former party chief Rahul Gandhi, new entrant Kanhaiya Kumar and some of the G-23 leaders.
So far, the party has announced 165 candidates in Uttar Pradesh, out of a total of 403, and 34 candidates in Punjab, out of a total of 65. The party, on the other hand, has declared candidates for 59 of the 70 seats in Uttarakhand. In Goa, the BJP has announced 34 candidates for the 40 available seats.
