BJP deliberates on candidates for Delhi Assy, final list likely tom

New Delhi, Oct 31 (UNI) The Bharatiya Janata Party today agreed on names of candidates for 30 seats of the Delhi Legislative Assembly, elections for which are to be held on November 29, party sources said.

In a marathon meeting of the BJP Election Committee, held to deliberate on names of candidates for 70 seats of the Delhi Legislative Assembly, agreement was reached on almost 30 seats, Delhi BJP chief Harshvardhan said.

Dr Harshvardhan said this was the first meeting of the party Election Committee to shortlist possible candidates for Delhi Legislative Assembly polls.

The Election Committee will meet again tomorrow and in the evening a discussion would be held with central party leaders on names of candidates for almost all the 70 Assembly seats.

He said the final list of candidates could be released tomorrow itself.

Earlier, the list of party candidates for the Assembly seats was likely to be released today after a meeting with the party's Parliamentary board. However, the meeting of the Parliamentary board was postponed after deliberating on candidates for MAdhya Pradesh Assembly polls.

Dr Harshvardhan said the deliberations on names of candidates for wards number one to ward number 30 in the Delhi Assembly had been almost completed. Names of sitting MLAs were also discussed, he said.

In reply to a question, the Delhi BJP Chief said 3500 applications were recieved fot the 70 Assembly seats.

Besides the 20 members of the Election Committee, today's meeting was also attended by party general secretary Arun Jaitley and party's in-charge for Delhi affairs Thaver Chand Gehlot.

Meanwhile, upset over reports of selection of BJP candidates for some Assembly seats, some Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, along with their supporters, held a protest outside the party state office here.

Dr Harshvardhan, however, refuted the reports appearing in the media in this regard.

''The names appearing in the media have no basis as there is no question of party's candidates being decided before an approval by the party's Central Election Committee,''he said.

On a question related to seat sharing arrangement with the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal), the Delhi BJP chief said,''there is no problem with such an arrangement. The working president of the Akali Dal Sukhbir Singh Badal is likely to arrive in Delhi tomorrow for discussions on the issue with central leaders. We are hopeful of a resolution of the matter.'' UNI AR GL AS2036