Rajasthan Election 2023: In Rajasthan, the BJP's second list may include around 70 to 80 candidates. A meeting of the Central Election Committee (CEC) was held on Friday night at the BJP headquarters under the chairmanship of the party's National President JP Nadda.
The final stamp of approval was given to the names for the second list during the meeting. The list is expected to be released today or tomorrow.
Apart from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the meeting was attended by Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, B.S. Yediyurappa, K. Laxman, Iqbal Singh Lalpura, Sudha Yadav, Devendra Fadnavis, Om Mathur, Nitin Patel, D.K. Aruna, Satyanarayan Jatiya, and Sarbananda Sonowal.
Former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, Central Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, State President C.P. Joshi, Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Rajendra Rathore, and other leaders from Rajasthan were also present at the meeting.
In the second list as well, the BJP may offer opportunities to new faces, potentially fielding 2-3 Members of Parliament in the upcoming state assembly elections.
Moreover, around 45 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) from the existing list could be reissued tickets for the state assembly elections.
Over the past three days, the BJP Core Group has held two meetings to reach a consensus on the second list of candidates.
On October 17th, a meeting of the state BJP Core Group took place at the residence of the national president, JP Nadda, with the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Similarly, on Thursday, another Core Group meeting was convened at the residence of the Central Minister and State Election In-charge Pralhad Joshi.
This meeting included prominent BJP leaders, such as State BJP President C.P. Joshi, former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly Rajendra Rathore, Deputy Leader of the Opposition Satish Poonia, State Coordinator Arun Singh, and other members of the State Core Group.
Out of the 200 legislative assembly seats in the state, 19 are categorized as 'D' category by the BJP. Candidates for 11 of these seats have already been announced in the first list. Candidates for the remaining 8 seats may be announced in the second list.
These seats present an opportunity for the BJP to introduce new faces, as most of the candidates declared in the first list for these 11 seats are newcomers to the party.
