BJP leaders meet to pick candidates for LS polls

Bhubaneswar/New Delhi: The BJP’s Central Election Committee met in Delhi on Saturday to finalise the party’s candidates in several States for the Lok Sabha polls.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and BJP president J P Nadda were joined by other CEC members as they went over the list of probables to take a final call.

The States for which candidates were discussed include Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Rajasthan.

With the BJP and BJD alliance talks falling through, the CEC discussed candidates for all 21 Lok Sabha seats and 147 Assembly seats in Odisha, State BJP president Manmohan Samal told reporters.

Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan and BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra are likely to be fielded from Sambalpur and Puri respectively.

The CEC had met twice earlier and had named candidates for 291 Lok Sabha seats so far, including in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Haryana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Kerala and Telangana. The BJP is yet to announce candidates for many seats in some of these states.Earlier speaking to the media, Manmohan Samal said that political situation and strategy for Odisha were discussed in the CEC meeting. “The parliamentary committee will take the decision now. It is clear that there is going to be no alliance in Odisha (with the BJD) and we will contest all 147 seats in Assembly elections and 21 seats in Lok Sabha elections.”

Meanwhile, the BJD president, Naveen Patnaik, on Sunday reviewed preparations for Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat and its 7 Assembly segments with MLAs, observers and other key party functionaries.

The BJD has simultaneously made a strategy to launch its campaign in western Odisha.

The party organisational secretary, Pranab Prakash Das, and party observer for Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat, Manas Mangaraj, have been frequently visiting

Sambalpur.