Hours after the Election Commission of India announced the date for the Rajasthan Assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on October 9 released its first list of the 41 candidates for the elections.
The names of the candidates were finalised at a meeting of its Central Election Committee (CEC) that was chaired by the BJP President JP Nadda on October 1.
The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
BJP has fielded Rajyavardhan Rathore, an MP from Jhotwara, while another MP Diya Kumari has been fielded from Vidhyadhar Nagar. Baba Balaknath has been fielded from Tijara and Kirodi Lal Meena from Sawai Madhopur.
All 200 seats in Rajasthan will see voting on November 23.
Fourth list announced in Madhya Pradesh
The BJP on released its fourth list of candidates for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls with Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to contest again from his traditional seat of Budhni. The list of 57 candidates has some prominent names including Narottam Mishra, Govind Singh Rajput, Gopal Bhargava, Rajendra Shukla and Omprakash Sakhlecha.
The party’s list of candidates was released on the day the Election Commission announced the poll schedule in five States including Madhya Pradesh. Assembly polls will be held in Madhya Pradesh on November 17 and counting of votes will be held on December 3. The State has 230 assembly seats.
The BJP has made an early announcement of candidates for the assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh. The BJP released its first list of candidates for the Madhya Pradesh assembly elections on August 17 which had names of 39 candidates.
The second list was released on September 25. The list featured three Central Ministers — Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Minister of State (MoS) for Food Processing Industries Prahlad Singh Patel, and Minister of State for Rural Development and Steel Faggan Singh Kulatse–and four Lok Sabha MPs.
A day later, the party announced that Monika Batti will contest from Amarwara, a seat reserved for STs. She joined the BJP after leaving the Gondwana Gantantra Party.
Of the five states going to the polls, BJP is in power in Madhya Pradesh.
Elections will be held in the five crucial States of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram between November 7 and 30, and the results will be declared on December 3, the Election Commission said October 9.
(with inputs from ANI)
