BJP's CEC to finalise candidate list for Himachal Pradesh elections today

New Delhi: India's major political parties- BJP, Congress, and AAP now seem to pull up their socks and rush to finalise their candidate lists as the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday declared the assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh on November 12. The Central Election Committee (CEC) of the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) is to finalise its candidates for the elections on Tuesday, sources said.

Meanwhile, the state core committee led by chief minister Jai Ram Thakur, BJP State President Suresh Kashyap, National vice president and election in-charge Saudan Singh, central minister Anurag Thakur, former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, state in-charge Avinash Rai Khanna, Co in-charge Sanjay Tandon, election co-incharge Devinder Singh Rana, former BJP President Rajeev Bindal, Satpal Satti, General secretary Trilok Kapoor, Rakesh Jamwal, Trilok Jamwal, State Organisational secretary Pavan Rana and Mahila morcha President Rashmi Dhar Sood were present in the meeting at Haryana Bhawan here on Monday. Later the committee visited BJP national president Jagat Prakash Nadda's residence here in the national capital to finalise the draft of the probable candidates for the 68 assembly seats, party sources said. BJP general secretary BL Santosh also attended the meeting.

The CEC, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will give the final list of candidates after consultations with the party's senior leadership. The sources from the party also claimed that the tickets of many sitting ministers and MLAs could be cancelled in this election.

Meanwhile, the saffron party's top brass has expressed confidence in winning the upcoming assembly elections. The experts feel that the entry of the Aam Aadmi Party in the state has also made the contest interesting with election experts claiming that they might make things easy for BJP.

In the last assembly elections of 2017, BJP got an absolute majority by winning 44 seats in the 68-member house. The Congress party managed to win only 21 seats in that election.