The Central Election Committee (CEC) of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will meet in Delhi on March 4 to finalise the first list of candidates for 60 seats going to the polls in the first two phases of the West Bengal elections.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP chief JP Nadda and other senior party leaders will be present at the meeting.
The election for West Bengal’s 294 assembly seats will be held in eight phases from March 27. The results will be declared on May 2 along with the results of polls in three other States and a Union Territory.
West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said on March 3 said that the party’s State unit has shortlisted four to five names per seat for the first two phases of polling.
“We have received 120-140 names from our district units for the first two phases. In addition to that, there are hundreds of other names. We had 20-25 names for each seat and from that, we have shortlisted around 4-5 names per seat. There will be some more omission and after that, it is for the party leadership to decide," Ghosh was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
West Bengal is arguably the biggest election prize that the BJP has been eyeing in recent times. The State is witnessing a high-stakes battle with two-time Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and the BJP. The CM is facing a tough challenge from the latter amid a series of defections from her Trinamool Congress to the saffron party and corruption investigations against her party leaders, including her nephew Abhishek Banerjee.
One of the constituencies that will go to the polls in the second phase is Nandigram from where Banerjee is contesting. The TMC chief is likely to be challenged by Suvendu Adhikari, formerly a close aide of the West Bengal CM, who joined the BJP in December 2020.
As many as 19 TMC turncoats, including former ministers Adhikari and Rajib Banerjee, are likely to get BJP tickets in the first list
Also read | 10 factors that will impact West Bengal elections
State BJP President Ghosh may get a ticket from the Kharagpur Sadar seat which he had won in 2016 before resigning in 2019 after winning the Medinipur Lok Sabha constituency. The BJP, however, lost the Kharagpur Sadar seat to the TMC during a by-poll.