By IANS,
Ahmedabad : The Bharatiya Janata Party Sunday began discussing its probable candidates from Gujarat for the Lok Sabha elections. The process was launched with a three-day meeting of BJP’s Gujarat unit parliamentary board which opened here.
The closed-door meeting held at a farm house near here lasted over two hours and discussed probable candidates for nine out of the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat.
The pre-poll observers appointed recently for the Lok Sabha polls by the state BJP from Mehsana, Banaskantha, Sabarkantha, Panchmahals, Dahod, Chhota Udepur, Bharuch and Vadodara presented a panel of candidates from the regions to Chief Minister Narendra Modi and state BJP president Purshottam Rupala, party sources here told IANS.
The board would consider the names of the 17 remaining probables for the Lok sabha seats during the next two days, the source added.
The list of candidates will be presented to the central parliamentary board of the party in New Delhi next week for preparing a final list of candidates.
Party sources here said that many new faces could be seen in the list to counter the ‘Rahul Gandhi’ factor bothering Modi this time round as Gandhi’s recent visit to the university campuses here has been welcomed by the students who have become a sizeable potential vote bank for both the BJP and the Congress in Gujarat.
“The BJP high command has told all the state-level leaders to ensure no names are leaked out to the media before the official announcement to be made later in the month. The pre-poll observers appointed by the party, who had been touring the state, have been told by the state leadership not to discuss any candidates even with party colleagues,” a senior BJP MP said.
Modi and Rupala would hold discussions with the central leadership to prepare the final list of candidates.
The only candidate known till now is senior party leader L.K. Advani, who is to contest once again from Gandhinagar in Gujarat, he added.