Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has finalised its candidates for the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections during a meeting at the residence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Thursday evening.
A senior Bengal BJP leader said the central election committee of the party discussed candidates for a large number of constituencies and finalised names after a series of consultations with the state leadership.
Many of the party’s sitting MLAs are likely to be renominated this time, and the first list will be published soon after the polling dates are announced, within days after Modi's visit to West Bengal on March 14, the senior BJP leader said.
The meeting that lasted for around three hours was attended by BJP president J P Nadda, the party's election in charge for Bengal, Biplab Deb, and several senior leaders from the state unit, including Bengal BJP President Samik Bhattacharya, Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, and former state BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar. Union minister Santanu Thakur and BJP MP Manoj Tigga were also present at the meeting.
At present, the BJP has 65 MLAs in the 294-strong West Bengal Assembly.
Names for most of the constituencies had already been shortlisted during a meeting of state leaders and central observers in the last week of February, with three names shortlisted for most constituencies and four for a few other seats. The names were later discussed with the central leadership over the past two days before receiving final approval from the central election committee and the prime minister.
After the first list gets published, the BJP will come out with the rest of the names in the subsequent list soon afterwards, as there won’t be much time left to start campaigning.
Earlier, Suvendu Adhikari had informed that the meeting's main agenda was Modi's rally at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata on March 14, and the removal of the "tainted, undemocratic" Mamata Banerjee government.
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