BJP CEC meets to finalise candidates for UP polls

New Delhi, Jan 13: A meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Central Election Committee (CEC) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi held at party headquarters to finalise candidates for the upcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

PM Modi, BJP chief JP Nadda and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh joined the meet virtually.

Union minister's Amit Shah, Anurag Thakur, Dharmendra Pradhan and UP CM Yogi Adityanath are among the attendees.

"In BJP's Central Election Committee meeting today, a very fruitful discussion was held regarding candidates on 172 Assembly seats (in Uttar Pradesh). We are hopeful of registering a glorious victory in the 2022 Assembly elections," said UP Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya after the meet.

The CEC may clear the names of the candidates for most of the seats for the first phase where elections will be held from February 10.

The BJP has its task cut out in Uttar Pradesh to break a jinx under which no party has won two consecutive assembly elections in the state after 1985.

Spread over seven phases, moving sequentially from the west to the east of the vast state, the 403-seat polls will have a major bearing on the 2024 parliamentary elections, when the party hopes to return to power in Delhi under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Union Minister Amit Shah, who has been spearheading the ruling party's campaigns in UP in the past elections, indicated that much a few weeks back at a rally that scotched speculation that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is now out of favour with the BJP's central leadership.

Filing of nomination for the first phase of the seven-phase Uttar Pradesh polls is set to begin from January 14.

Uttar Pradesh will vote on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27, March 3 and 7. The results will be declared on March 10 along with the four other poll-bound states of Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.

The BJP had registered a landslide victory in 2017 assembly polls winning 312 seats on its own, and 325 if the those won by the allies are also counted. Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party was a distant second then at 49. Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party won 19 seats.