New Delhi: A meeting of the BJP central election committee got underway here Wednesday evening to finalise the party's candidates for the Gujarat assembly polls, with Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakor who left the Congress to join it among the probable. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, BJP president J P Nadda and other top leaders attended the meeting at the party headquarters here.
Sources said Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakor are likely to get party tickets. Patel may be fielded from Viramgam in Ahmedabad. Cricketer Ravindra Jadeja's wife Rivaba Jadeja also among the probable candidates, the sources said. The BJP is likely to field Kantilal Amrutya, a former MLA from Morbi, who reportedly jumped into the river to save people after the collapse of a bridge, which killed more than 130 people.
The saffron party is likely to finalise all 182 candidates during the meeting and announce their names in the next few days, sources said. The BJP is eyeing a seventh consecutive victory in the state. Aiming to set a new record in terms of the number of seats won, the saffron party is looking to inject new energy into the organisation. Hence, the possibility of dropping several senior leaders from the list of candidates cannot be ruled out, the sources said.
They also said the party has received suggestions that it should opt for new and young faces. Former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani and former deputy CM Nitin Patel and two other senior leaders -- Bhupendrasinh Chudasama and Pradipsinh Jadeja -- have already announced that they would not contest the upcoming assembly polls. In the fiercely fought Gujarat polls five years ago, the BJP had won 99 seats and its main rival Congress bagged 77 seats.
Currently, the BJP's strength in the 182-member Assembly is 111 after several MLAs from the Congress defected to it and it is unlikely that the saffron party will repeat all the incumbent MLAs. The Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) entry into Gujarat this time has opened a new front in the otherwise bipolar election. Polling will be held in two phases in Gujarat on December 1 and 5. (PTI)
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