IMPHAL: Chief minister N Biren Singh on Saturday rushed to New Delhi to finalise BJP candidates for the assembly polls on February 27 and March 3.
BJP has already announced that it will fight in all the 60 seats in the state — 40 in the valley and 20 in the hill districts — without entering into a pre-poll alliance. The BJP also exuded confidence of winning two-third majority to form the next government in the state on its own.
Senior vice-president of the BJP’s Manipur unit N Nimbus Singh told TOI on Saturday evening that the chief minister along with a few top leaders of the state would join the party’s central parliamentary board meeting in the national capital to finalise the candidates.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP national president J P Nadda, Union ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Bhupender Yadav and central party leaders B L Santosh , Ajay Jamwal and Sambit Patra are likely to attend the board meeting scheduled on Saturday night, Nimbus said.
Stating that the party would announce its candidates in three phases, the board meeting would discuss in-depth to pick up the first phase nominees, he said, adding that they would be announced in the next few days. “All BJP ministers and MLAs are likely to be incorporated in the list of first phase candidates. Nevertheless, the possibility of two to three MLAs being left out as candidates cannot be ruled out,” he said.
On Friday, a meeting of the election committee was convened in Imphal to discuss the prospects of all aspiring candidates seeking party tickets. Besides the state unit leaders, including president A Sharda Devi, Biren Singh, minister Th Biswajit Singh , ex-presidents and others, the Imphal meeting was also attended by state election in-charge Yadav, state in-charge Patra and northeast in-charge Jamwal.
After the meeting, Yadav and Jamwal left for Delhi with a compiled list of the aspiring candidates, sources said, adding that the list was prepared after rounds of discussions. Nimbus expressed optimism that those aspiring candidates, who are not given tickets, would definitely support the nominees in their respective seats.
On the other hand, NPF, a key partner in the current BJP-led coalition government, is likely to release the list of its candidates in the next couple of days, sources said, adding that the party will fight in 16 seats.
