Delhi BJP finalises candidates for 57 seats for Assy poll

New Delhi, Nov 1 (UNI) Amid a lot of drama which saw walk-out by senior BJP leaders Vijay Goel and Om Prakash Kohli from the meeting of the party election committee to select candidates for the Delhi Legislative Assembly polls, the state BJP today shortlisted names for 57 out of 70 seats in the state Assembly.

In a marathon meeting of the 20-member BJP state election committee held here this afternoon, an agreement was reached on names of BJP candidates for 57 seats. At the over six-hour-long meeting, it was also decided to earmark four seats for the Akali Dal.

The four seats from where the BJP will have seat sharing with the Akali Dal are Jangpura, Shadara, Adarsh Nagar and Rajouri Garden.

Besides BJP Delhi Chief Harshvardhan, the meeting of the election committee was attended by party's chief ministerial candidate for Delhi Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Mr Mange Ram Garg, Mr Vijay Goel, Mr O P Kohli, Ms Anita Arya, Mr Jagdish Mukhi, Mr Abdul Rashid, Mr Harsharan Singh Balli, Ms Neera Shastri, Mr Vijay Sharma, Mr Pawan Sharma, Mr Alok Kumar, Ms Meera Kanwaria, Mr Shyam Lal Garg, Mr Subhash Arya, Mr Suryabhan Pandey, Mr Murari Singh Pawar, Mr Lal Bihari Tiwari and Ms Vishakha Sailani.

Today's meeting of the party's state election committee was, however, stormy with committee members Vijay Goel and O P Kohli staging a walkout over differences over selection of candidates.

The nine seats over which agreement could not be reached are Laxminagar, Seelampur, Mustafabad, Burari, Nangloi Jat, Sadar Bazar, Patparganj, Najafgarh and Trilokpuri.

Delhi BJP chief Harshvardhan said a decision could not be taken on these seats as as a large number of applications were received and a consensus could not be reached.

The Delhi BJP office also witnessed protests by party workers from Okhla and Ambedkarnagar who were unhappy over non consideration of some candidates proposed by them.

Shouts of ''BJP Hai Hai'' rent the air as BJP workers from Okhla assembly segment expressed their resentment over reports of the election committee ignoring the name of Gulzari Lal Nanda from the seat.

UNI AR AKJ RAI1855