Prime Minister Narendra Modi late on Thursday evening led the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Central Election Committee’s (CEC) key meet to finalise the first list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The meeting also saw in attendance senior leaders such as BJP National President JP Nadda, Union Ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh. This comes at a time when all parties are gearing up for the announcement of the Lok Sabha election dates.
The meeting, which began around 10:30 pm on Thursday, lasted for more than four hours, according to news agency PTI.
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The general elections are expected to be held in April-May. Leaders from various states, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Gujarat’s Bhupendra Patel, Madhya Pradesh’s Mohan Yadav, Chhattisgarh’s Vishnu Deo Sai, Uttarakhand’s Pushkar Singh Dhami and Goa’s Pramod Sawant, were among those who arrived for the meeting.
Shortlists that name the top three candidates for each seat have been drawn up and the BJP is hoping to announce candidates for over 50 per cent of the Lok Sabha seats ahead of March 10.
This was the game plan during the last general election in 2019 also, when the BJP had announced 164 candidates on March 21, a few weeks before the elections were announced.
A large number of those seats that the BJP has targeted for improving its prospects after unsuccessfully contesting those in 2019 may figure in the initial lists of candidates, following the template of recent Assembly polls, sources were quoted as saying by PTI.
The Congress meanwhile, is hoping to wrap up the seat-sharing process in Maharashtra as soon as possible. Leaders of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) are expected to meet in Mumbai this evening.