All 10 BJP MPs are being dropped in Chhattisgarh

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday night decided to field former Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh in the Lok Sabha election from Rajnandgaon, a seat he had won in 1999. Indications are that two other former chief ministers — Shivraj Singh Chouhan of MP and Vasundhara Raje of Rajasthan — are also being pursued to contest the Lok Sabha elections.

There was no official announcement of the candidates but a BJP general secretary said all 10 party MPs are being dropped in Chhattisgarh and there will be new faces for all 11 seats, including Durg which is currently vacant.

Those being dropped include stalwart Ramesh Bais elected from Raipur. The Central Election Committee (CEC), which sat up to 2 am on Saturday, held a second marathon meeting on Tuesday with Prime Minister Modi, BJP President Amit Shah and all senior party leaders in attendance.

The meeting, which started in the evening, was continuing even at 11 pm. Party sources said the meeting first wrapped up the first list of names that could not be finalised on Saturday and then started taking up lists from the states.

There was, however, no word from the party till 11 PM whether the first list will be out in the night or only on Wednesday. The meeting also discussed sharing of seats with allies in 10 states and sources said all leaders appreciated efforts put in by Amit Shah to rope in smaller parties in many states.

Nominations have already begun for the first two rounds of elections and all parties are in a hurry to finalise the lists. March 25 and 26 are the last dates for nominations in the first and second phase of polling on April 11 and 18, respectively.

Even the Congress has so far released names of only 137 candidates as it is still to sew up alliances in many states, including West Bengal, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. A late night Congress statement said Karan Sasane has been made president of Ahmednagar district Congress.