Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and other leaders at the meeting. (PTI)
The BJP's Central Election Committee (CEC) met for a third time today to deliberate on the names of its candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. The party is believed to have finalised candidates for most of the seats going to the polls in the initial few phases. However, it has not released a list yet.
The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party president Amit Shah and its other members, held a long meeting with top BJP leaders from Uttar Pradesh. It later met leaders from other states
BJP is likely to field Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad, RK Singh and Giriraj Singh from Patna Sahib, Arrah and Begusarai seats in Bihar respectively. It may repeat Union ministers VK Singh and Satyapal Singh from their seats in western Uttar Pradesh. In Odisha, the party is considering fielding its spokesperson Sambit Patra and its vice president Baijayant Panda, sources said.
While the party is set to drop a sizeable number of its sitting lawmakers from UP to take on the formidable SP-BSP alliance, it is set to bank on its sitting members in Bihar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to contest from Varanasi again and the party is also deliberating on whether to field him from one more seat.
Yesterday evening, the CEC had held a seven-hour-long discussion to deliberate upon the names of the party's candidates in various states, sources said.