Gujarat polls: BJP top brass to meet today to finalise candidates

New Delhi, Nov 9: The top BJP leadership will deliberate on Wednesday on the candidates for the upcoming Gujarat Assembly polls, where the party is eyeing a victory for a seventh consecutive time. The central election committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also comprising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and party president J P Nadda, will meet here in the evening to finalise the candidates.

Polling will be held in two phases in Gujarat on December 1 and 5. The saffron party is likely to finalise all 182 candidates during the meeting and announce their names in the next few days, sources said.

Ahead of the meeting, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupender Patel and state BJP chief C R Patil met here to give final touches to the list of the probables prepared by the party's state unit. Aiming to set a new record in terms of the number of seats won, the saffron party is looking to inject new energy into the organisation.

Hence, the possibility of dropping several senior leaders from the list of candidates cannot be ruled out, the sources said. They also said the party has received suggestions that it should opt for new and young faces.

In the fiercely fought Gujarat polls five years ago, the BJP had won 99 seats and its main rival Congress bagged 77 seats. Currently, the BJP's strength in the 182-member Assembly is 111 after several MLAs from the Congress defected to it and it is unlikely that the saffron party will repeat all the incumbent MLAs.

The Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) entry into Gujarat this time has opened a new front in the otherwise bipolar election.

PTI