Assembly Elections 2021: Crucial BJP CEC meet put off

New Delhi, Mar 05: The meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Central Election Committee (CEC) scheduled to be held today to finalise the party's first list of candidates for the initial phases of assembly polls in West Bengal and Assam, has been cancelled, ANI reported.

Earlier on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP President JP Nadda and other senior party leaders including Union Ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh held the meeting at the party headquarters.

In the meeting which was held yesterday, the party leaders discussed the names of BJP candidates for the First Phase of the polls in Assam and West Bengal.

One of the high-profile contests in the high-stakes Bengal polls is likely to be a direct fight between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her former confidant and now BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram seat.

After attending Bharatiya Janata Party's Central Election Committee meeting in Delhi, party leader Mukul Roy on March 05 said the party workers want Suvendu Adhikari to contest the Nandigram seat in the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections, but no decision has been taken on it yet.

Meanwhile, the Congress Central Election Committee will also meet today to clear the names of candidates for West Bengal and Assam Assembly elections.

Polling in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry will take place in a single phase on April 6.

The BJP has high stakes in West Bengal and Assam. In Bengal, it has mounted an aggressive, all-out campaign, deploying a number of leaders drawn from various states and considered adept in poll campaigning, to end the 10-year-old reign of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

In Assam, where the party came to power for the first time in 2016, the BJP has been pulling out all the stops to retain power, with the Congress joining hands with regional parties to capture its old bastion.

Before the CEC meeting, top BJP leaders like Shah and Nadda have held long deliberations with Assam party leaders, including Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and minister Himanta Biswa Sharma, and those from Bengal, including state party chief Dilip Ghosh.