BJP finalises candidates for 172 seats in Uttar Pradesh; CM Adityanath likely to contest from Ayodhya

Polling in most of these 172 seats will be held in the initial phases beginning February 10

As the three-day long deliberation of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Core Committee on the upcoming Uttar Pradesh elections came to an end on Thursday at the party’s headquarters in the Capital, the party is expected to announce the names of 172 candidates in the coming few days.

As the meetings came to an end, UP deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya told reporters that the party hopes to do better than the last assembly elections.

“In this meet, we discussed 172 seats, and we will have a resounding victory. The BJP will do better than we did in 2017,” said Maurya. The deputy chief minister has been raising the issue of the Krishna Janambhoomi in Mathura for a while now.

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Sources in the party told DH that the probability of fielding UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath from Ayodhya was extensively discussed, but discussions remained inconclusive.

The seats on which decisions have been taken are from the first, second and third phases. Deliberations on the other seats will take place after January 15, the sources said.

During the three-day meetings, NISHAD party chief Sanjay Nishad as well as Apna Dal leader and junior minister in the Commerce ministry, Anupriya Patel met leaders.

There are strong indications that both these allies will be given a bigger seat-share than the last term. In 2017, NISHAD party fielded 100 candidates in alliance with Apna Dal. The NISHAD party entered an alliance deal with the BJP in September last year.

Each of these parties might be given up to 15 seats each, a leader said.

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The upcoming elections will be held over seven phases between February 10 and March 3 this year. The BJP had bagged 325 of the state’s 403 seats then.

The three-day long discussions were held in person, with some leaders joining online as they were infected with the Covid-19. On Thursday, PM Modi joined virtually, as well as party president J P Nadda, defence minister Rajnath Singh, transport minister Nitin Gadkari and Bihar minister Shahnawaz Hussain.

Union home minister Amit Shah, UP CM Yogi Adityanath, Jual Oram, MP CM Shivraj Chouhan, general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh, and national secretary Vijaya Rahatkar were part of the meeting, in addition to Maurya.

The party’s core committees for Punjab and Uttarakhand are slated to meet in the coming week, said party sources.

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