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BJP's CEC meeting underway to finalise candidates for assembly polls
Union home minister Amit Shah, Union defence minister Rajnath Singh, and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief JP Nadda are present in the meeting.
A meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Central Election Committee (CEC) in presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is currently underway at party headquarters to finalise candidates for the upcoming assembly elections in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, West Bengal and Assam.
Union home minister Amit Shah, Union defence minister Rajnath Singh, and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief JP Nadda are also present in the meeting.
The committee had earlier met on Thursday to finalise party candidates for the initial phases of assembly polls in West Bengal and Assam, two of the four states going to the elections besides the union territory of Puducherry.
The committee, which includes PM Modi, Shah and Nadda, met at the BJP headquarters along with other members.
The CEC may clear the names of the candidates for most of the seats in the two states where elections will be held in the first two phases on March 27 and April 1, news agency PTI reported.
While the third and last phase of polling in Assam will be held on April 6, West Bengal is scheduled to undergo elections in eight phases ending on April 29.
West Bengal is set to witness a high-pitched contest as chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her former aide and now BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram seat have been pitted against each other.
Polling in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry will take place in a single phase on April 6.
Before the CEC meeting, top BJP leaders like Shah and Nadda have held long deliberations with Assam party leaders, including chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal and minister Himanta Biswa Sharma, and those from Bengal, including state party chief Dilip Ghosh.
(With inputs from agencies)
