In a major goof up that has not gone down well with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s top leadership, a list of 35 probable candidates for the 81 member Jharkhand Assembly circulated on social media, and several news platforms, prompting the party to defer its “official’ announcement for declaration of the contestants.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top BJP leaders were present in the party’s Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting for Jharkhand held late on Wednesday evening. Sources said the meeting continued till late night but the PM left midway.
Sources also said the PM told the members to reconsider some of the Assembly pockets since the party is banking high on the winnability of the candidates to wrest power from the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-Congress led government in the mineral rich state.
Soon after the announcement of Assembly and By-Poll elections schedule, BJP’s CEC convened a two-day marathon meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday evening at the party’s Headquarters in national Capital to deliberate on the names of candidates for the upcoming Jharkhand and Maharashtra Assembly polls, as well as candidates for Assembly and Lok Sabha By-Polls.
The meeting for Maharashtra on Wednesday was attended by several high-profile BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP National President JP Nadda, Union Home Ministers Amit Shah, Piyush Goel Bhupender Yadav, Ashwini Vaishnaw and Maharashtra deputy chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and respective state and CEC members. The meeting continued till the time of going to press.
A day earlier CEC held a crucial meeting and discussed the names of candidates for the Jharkhand Assembly Elections. Sources said the PM left the meeting earlier and asked the CEC members to rethink on certain seats.
Party’s national organization general secretary B.L. Santhosh, K. Laxman, Satyanarayan Jatiya, Iqbal Singh Lalpura, Sudha Yadav, Sarbananda Sonowal, and Vani Tripathi, among other CEC members were present.
Jharkhand in-charge and Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Jharkhand co-in-charge and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Jharkhand BJP in-charge Laxmikant Vajpayee, Jharkhand BJP president Babulal Marandi, former Jharkhand Chief Ministers Champai Soren and Arjun Munda, Union Minister Annpurna Devi, and Minister of State for Defense Sanjay Seth, among other senior leaders of the Jharkhand BJP Core Group, also attended the meeting.
Sources said CEC discussed the names of candidates for around 50 assembly seats in Jharkhand. The first list is likely to include more than 35 candidates.
The Election Commission announced the dates for the Maharashtra and Jharkhand Assembly Elections on Tuesday. Maharashtra will go to polls in a single phase on November 20, while Jharkhand will have a two-phase election on November 13 and 20, with the results being declared on November 23.
