BJP's second list of candidates may come in a day or two

A few days are left for the Lok Sabha Elections 2024. The Election Commission will announce the dates very soon. In such a situation, all the parties are busy in choosing candidates. BJP had released the first list of candidates on March 2. In this, candidates were finalized on 195 seats. The Central Election Committee of BJP had called an important meeting on Monday (11 March) to finalize the candidates for the second list.

In the marathon meeting that lasted for 4 hours at BJP headquarters in Delhi, 100 seats of 8 states including Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh were discussed. BJP may release another list of candidates in a day or two. However, since the picture of the alliance in Bihar, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh is not completely clear, the list of candidates from these states may get delayed. Many senior leaders including PM Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP National President JP Nadda were present in the meeting.

In the meeting of BJP's Central Election Committee, 17 seats in Bihar and 8 seats in Telangana were discussed. Brainstorming has also taken place regarding 4 seats of Himachal Pradesh. Discussion has also taken place on 28 seats of Karnataka. Of these, but 5-6 seats have been kept for the alliance. JDS has formed an alliance with BJP in Karnataka. At the same time, talks are going on with different BJP leaders from all the allies in Bihar. The alliance will be announced in two to three days.

According to sources, all the remaining 11 seats of Gujarat were discussed, in which consensus was reached on 7 seats. Discussion was completed on all the remaining 5 seats of Madhya Pradesh, in which consensus was reached on 4 seats. Churning took place on 25 seats in Maharashtra, 8 in Telangana and all 28 seats in Karnataka.

On March 2, BJP had announced 195 candidates from different states. But candidates are yet to be announced on 2 seats of Delhi, 11 of Gujarat, 1 of Goa, 2 of Jharkhand, 8 of Kerala, 5 of Madhya Pradesh, 2 each of Manipur and Meghalaya, 1 each of Mizoram-Nagaland. .Apart from this, candidates are yet to be decided for 10 seats in Rajasthan, 1 in Sikkim, 2 in Uttarakhand, 28 in UP and 22 in West Bengal.

Talks are going on for BJP's allies in Maharashtra and Bihar. In Maharashtra, BJP is in coalition government with Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) and NCP (Ajit Pawar faction). At the same time, in Bihar, BJP is talking about seat sharing with Nitish Kumar's party JDU and Chirag Paswan's political party. Whereas in Punjab there is talk of coming together with BJP and Akali Dal. Candidates will be finalized only after the seat sharing formula is finalized in these three states.

Nothing has been finalized yet in the proposed alliance with AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, TDP and Janasena in Andhra Pradesh, BJD in Odisha, hence the candidates have also not been decided.

Announcement of 51 candidates from UP in the first list:

BJP announced the maximum number of 51 names from Uttar Pradesh in the first list of candidates. Tickets were given to candidates for 24 seats in Madhya Pradesh, 20 in West Bengal and 15 each in Gujarat and Rajasthan. BJP declared candidates for 12 seats in Kerala, 11 seats each in Telangana, Assam, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Candidates were decided on 5 seats in Delhi, 3 in Uttarakhand, 2 in Jammu and Kashmir, one seat each in Goa, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar and Daman and Diu.

Why is Congress contesting Lok Sabha elections from Alappuzha seat of Kerala to KC Venugopal?

In the first list, BJP has fielded Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi, Home Minister Amit Shah from Gandhinagar, Gujarat and Defense Minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow.

At the same time, on March 8, Congress had released its first list, in which there are names of 39 candidates. According to the list, Rahul Gandhi will contest elections from Wayanad in Kerala this time too. While party general secretary KC Venugopal has been given ticket from Alappuzha Lok Sabha seat in Kerala. Apart from this, on March 10, Mamata Banerjee has announced candidates for all 42 seats of Bengal in a rally.