Bhubaneswar: The BJP’s Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting will be held on Saturday evening to discuss party candidates for the Lok Sabha elections.
Meanwhile, BJP’s state unit President Manmohan Samal left for Delhi to attend the party’s CEC meeting.
The meeting will be chaired by the party’s national president J. P. Nadda. BJP will finalise its next list of candidates for the Lok Sabha polls in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The meeting may finalise 150 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan, Haryana, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh.
Along with Samal, BJP’s General Secretary (Org) Manas Mohanty also left for the national capital to attend the CEC meeting.
Talking to mediapersons while leaving for New Delhi, Samal said, “CEC meeting will be held at 6 pm today to discuss and finalise candidates for Lok Sabha elections. CEC and Parliament Party will take the final call in this regard. We will disclose the names soon.”
Notably, the saffron party released its initial list of 195 candidates on March 2, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the pack, seeking his third consecutive term from Varanasi.
So far, the party has announced 291 candidates out of which two of them have expressed their inability to contest polls.
Lok Sabha elections will be conducted in seven phases, from April 19 to June 1. Counting of votes will be taken up on June 4.
