BJP to announce candidates for Punjab, Goa, U’khand today

Ending all speculations, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is to declare candidates’ list for the poll-bound states of Punjab, Goa and Uttarakhand on Wednesday at the party headquarters here.

The meeting of BJP Central Election Committee (CEC) will start at 6 in the evening. After the meeting the lists will be announced, party sources said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, the party president Amit Shah and other senior leaders and union ministers will also be attending the meeting at Ashoka Road.

“Seats for Goa and Punjab will be declared on January 11 after a meeting of the CEC, while seats for Uttarakhand and the first few phases for the multiple-phase Uttar Pradesh polls will be announced after meetings on January 14 and 15,” a senior office-bearer of the party said.

Sources said that from the lesson of Bihar debacle and defeat in the national capital, the party top brass decided to not provide election tickets to outsiders in all poll bound states after the national executive meeting. BJP general secretary Ram Lal, organizational general secretaries from state units, Sunil Bansal (Uttar Pradesh) and Ashok Parnami (Rajasthan) and V. Satish had meeting on the matter.

The BJP lost both elections with its leaders blaming sabotage and indifference of local workers to a large extent. The local leaders had accused their counterparts from other states of acting like “super boss” during election, who conducted poll management without enough knowledge of ground realities.