Modi chairs late-night BJP meet to finalise first list of Lok Sabha candidates

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday night convened its central election committee (CEC) meeting to finalise the first list of candidates for the Lok Sabha polls.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh and BJP president Jagat Prakash Nadda were among those who attended the meeting.

The meeting, which began around 10:30 pm on Thursday, lasted for more than four hours and was held at the party's headquarters in Delhi.

Leaders from various states, including Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Gujarat's Bhupendra Patel, Madhya Pradesh's Mohan Yadav, Chhattisgarh's Vishnu Deo Sai, Uttarakhand's Pushkar Singh Dhami and Goa's Pramod Sawant, were among those who arrived at the BJP headquarters for the meeting.

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HT has learnt that several seats from southern states were likely to figure in the BJP's first list of candidates. The BJP will release list early to ensure that the candidates get about 50 days to campaign.

As per report, the first list was expected to be released amid speculations on whether some Union ministers who are currently Rajya Sabha members, would contest.

"It is appearing in the media. More or less it is final that they (Nirmala Sitharaman and Jaishankar) will contest the Lok Sabha elections. It has not been decided yet from where they will fight, whether it is in Karnataka or some other state," Union minister Pralhad Joshi had said few days ago.

To a question whether it will be Bengaluru, Joshi said, "How can I answer when nothing has been finalised?"

Both Sitharaman and Jaishankar are Rajya Sabha members from Karnataka and Gujarat respectively.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asserted confidence that he will come to power for a third straight term, a feat only achieved by India's first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

“When the opposition said '24 mein 400 paar', I said I have also heard this that NDA will cross 400. But I have also heard that the BJP alone will cross 370. And I will tell you how to do it,” Modi said at a public meeting in Madhya Pradesh's Jhabua earlier this month.