BJP to finalise its UP poll nominees in the next two days

New Delhi, Mar 13 (UNI) After having struck an electoral understanding with Apna Dal and Janata Dal (United), the Central Election Committee (CEC) of the BJP is going to finalise its nominees for the coming Uttar Pradesh elections in the next two days, top BJP sources said.

Party leaders who met under the chairmanship of BJP President Rajnath Singh said that the party had identified the seats to be contested by the party as well as the alliance partners for the 403-member U P Assembly. The CEC will consider the nominees and constituencies phase wise and in the two days, the final list will be out", the sources said.

Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Leader of Opposition L K Advani and senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi are among the leaders who will finalise the party candidates phase by phase and put their seal of approval for the seats to be left to alliance partners.

Apna Dal and J D (U) would be allowed to contest around 50 to 55 seats in the areas where they have influence, leaving 350 odd seats for the BJP candidates.

About BJP's Chief Ministerial nominee Kalyan Singh expressing his reservations about the selection mode, sources said the issue had been 'sorted out' and the party expected no problems to crop up ahead of elections.

Law and order, corruption, malgovernance, price rise and freeing the administration from the 'goonda' elements will be the issues the party would be taking up besides treading a hard Hindutva line ahead of the elections.

Today's meeting was attended by party's U P elections Incharge M Venkaiah Naidu, party General Secretaries Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar and Vice Presidents Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Bal Apte.

UNI