- Monday, February 24, 2025
Names of 150 candidates in the second list are expected to be revealed this weekend following a meeting of the ruling party’s election panel headed by PM Modi.
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA’S ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday (6) held a late-night meeting that lasted several hours to decide on its second list of candidates for the upcoming general elections. If media reports are to be believed, the second list could see names of 150 candidates. The final decision on the list will be taken during a meeting of the Hindu nationalist party’s election committee and the announcement is expected to happen by this weekend. Prime minister Narendra Modi will preside over the committee meeting.
It was on the last weekend that the BJP announced its first list of candidates that feature 195 names, including those of Modi, home minister Amit Shah and some other top leaders. The first list was also finalised following an overnight meeting in New Delhi on February 29-March 1 which was presided over by Modi.
The meeting about the second list reportedly saw the presence of members of the BJP’s core committees in states such as Haryana, Maharashtra and Rajasthan — all of which are ruled by the same party.
Read: Modi’s BJP unveils 1st candidates list for 2024 election; PM eyes Varanasi hat-trick
The BJP is also up against the task of negotiating seats in a number of states where it will contest the election with allies. In the latest meeting, the party’s leaders spoke on seat-sharing with regional allies such as Shiv Sena led by Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar.
Read: Modi drops sitting MPs with Muslim-bashing record for next election: A new message?
Both the Sena and NCP, which were in the opposition with the Indian National Congress, witnessed implosion within their ranks resulting in their splits.
Media reports suggested that the BJP would contest 32 seats in Maharashtra, which sends 48 members to the Lok Sabha or the popularly elected Lower House of the parliament. Sena is likely to contest in 12 and the NCP in four.
The name of India’s road transport and highways minister, Nitin Gadkari, is likely to feature in the upcoming list and may again contest from Nagpur, his home town and constituency since 2014.
If the second list including 150 candidates is released by this weekend, the BJP will be announcing names of 345 candidates even before the Election Commission of India revealed the poll schedule. This will not only give the ruling party’s candidates more time for campaigning but also put pressure on the opposition to quickly come up with an effective plan.
The BJP had fielded 436 candidates in the general election of 2019 and won 303 of them.
