The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) late on Saturday held a meeting, presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah, to finalise the names of candidates for the upcoming polls, particularly for constituencies where polling will be held in the first phase.
The meeting of the BJP Central Election Committee (CEC) at the party’s headquarters in Delhi, culminated at 2 am on Sunday. The list that was expected to be out on Saturday, may now release on Monday. Meanwhile the Congress released its fourth list of candidates on Saturday.
According to the reports, the discussion was held on seats in Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Telangana, Uttarakhand and the seven northeastern states.
The reports suggested that in Saturdays’s meeting, there was no discussion on Uttar Pradesh which has 80 parliamentary seats and where the BJP is still in talks with smaller parties to finalise seat sharing. The BJP won 71 seats in the state in the 2014 general election
In Bihar, the grand alliance led by Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) is likely to announce seat sharing today. The RJD is likely to contest on 20 seats and Congress on 11 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar.
The Lok Sabha elections will begin on April 11 and continue for over a month till May 19 across seven phases, followed by counting of votes on May 23.
