BJP’s CEC meet on Sunday, Karnataka list of candidates by Monday

The BJP' list for the Karnataka elections is likely to come out on Monday as the Central Election Committee meeting of the party will take place on Sunday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting Telangana, Chennai and Karnataka over the weekend. Since he will be spending the night in Karnataka, the Central Election Committee meeting will be held only on Sunday once he returns. The Karnataka core group meeting is however likely to take place today, sources said.

It is however unclear whether the BJP will release the full list of 224 candidates on Monday. Sources tell OneIndia that the first list may contain just the names of 130 candidates. However, all attempts are being made to release the full list and get the full campaign kick-started.

Former Karnataka chief minister and senior BJP leader B S Yediyurappa will take part in the election committee meeting set to be held on Sunday. I am going to Delhi to take part in the meeting and the party will soon finalise its list, the veteran BJP leader told news agency ANI.

Elections in Karnataka will be held on May 10 and the results will be out on May 13.

Sources also said that the BJP is likely to retain all candidates who had fought and won the 2018 elections. However, the changes are expected only on those seats, where some senior leaders had resigned. The BJP will be bearing in mind that no party since 1985 has managed to come back to power and the anti-incumbency factor would weigh very heavily on the mind of the party before the list is finalised.

Before departing to Delhi, Yediyurappa sounded confident that the party would return to power in Karnataka with a full majority. "The BJP is going to get absolute majority and we are going to form the government, 100 per cent," he said.

While the BJP is yet to come out with its first list, its opponents, the Congress and JD(S) has released the names of 166 and 93 candidates respectively.

There has been a tug-of-war between the BJP and Congress over the list of candidates. The BJP has accused the Congress of trying to poach its candidates and said that the party has deliberately put the final list on hold. Chief Minster, Basavaraj Bommai said that the Congress is calling leaders from the BJP and asking them to join the party. "This is because the Congress does not have candidates," Bommai said.