PM Modi, other senior BJP leaders meet to pick candidates for Lok Sabha polls

New Delhi: With four days left for the nomination of the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls, the Central Election Committee of the BJP convened Saturday evening, with a key focus on some seats in Uttar Pradesh as well as a few seats in Maharashtra where the party is working out an arrangement with the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena.

PM Modi presided over the meeting, and as many as 90-115 candidates are expected to be finalised.

This includes seats like Pilibhit, held by Varun Gandhi. Other seats include Maharashtra’s Ramtek, Bhandara-Gondia and Gadricholi, which the BJP and Shinde both want.

Till now, the BJP has announced candidates for 291 seats, but at least three candidates have pulled out of the contest. Saturday’s meeting had in attendance party President J P Nadda, home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, deputy CMs Brijesh Pathak and Keshav Prasad Maurya, in addition to other members of the CEC.

Sources said that prior to the CEC meeting, Nadda and Shah held a meeting with the Prime Minister to apprise him of the seat-sharing developments and the political situation following Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal's arrest.

In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP is yet to announce a candidate from the Pilibhit seat, where Varun Gandhi is the current MP, and his mother Maneka Gandhi, the former MP. There has been speculation that either both or one of them will be denied a ticket. The party is also yet to announce tickets in Saharanpur, and sources said that the announcement will come alongside that of the Meerut and Ghaziabad seats, keeping in mind caste equations.

In Maharashtra, the BJP and the Shiv Sena (Eknath faction) are deciding over six seats in Vidarbha, including Ramtek, Bhandara-Gondia, Yavatmal-Washim, Chandrapur, Amravati and Gadchiroli.

On Saturday, Mahayuti leaders, Shinde, Ajit Pawar, and Devendra Fadnavis also held meetings with the BJP top brass to iron out these differences.

In the first phase, polling will be held in 102 constituencies from 21 states and UTs, including all the 39 seats of Tamil Nadu, 12 seats in Rajasthan, 8 seats of Uttar Pradesh, 6 in MP, 5 each in Uttarakhand, Maharashtra and Assam, as well as 4 seats in Bihar. Polling will also be held in 3 seats in West Bengal, 2 each in Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Manipur, as well as a seat each in Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Lakshadweep, Mizoram, and Nagaland.

In the Lakshadweep seat, as well as the two seats in Meghalaya, the Outer seat in Manipur as well as the lone Nagaland seat, the BJP announced on Friday that it is extending support to the NDA candidates.