BJP declares first lists for Assembly polls

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday evening announced its list of candidates for the oct 13 assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday evening announced its list of candidates for the oct 13 assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh.

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The candidate selection was done at a meeting of the party's Central Election Committee chaired by BJP president Rajnath Singh. The meeting was attended by LK Advani, leader of the opposition (Lok Sabha), Arun Jaitley, leader of opposition (Rajya Sabha) and other committee members, said a party statement.

The three assembly elections are seen as a first major popularity test after the April-May Lok Sabha elections, in which the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) retained power.

In Maharashtra, where the party is going to contest 119 of the 288 total seats, with ally Shiv Sena contesting the rest, it announced a first list of 66 candidates.

Prominent among them was Poonam Mahajan, daughter of slain party leader and former central minister Pramod Mahajan, from the Ghatkopar West constituency of Mumbai.

Maharashtra has been ruled by the Democratic Front - an alliance of the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for the past 10 years - and the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance is looking to regain power in the crucial state.

The BJP, which had only one member in the outgoing assembly, had an alliance with the Indian National Lok Dal headed by Om Prakash Chautala for the Lok Sabha polls, but they parted ways last month.

For polls to the 60-member Arunachal Pradesh assembly, the party on Saturday named seven candidates.