New candidates include six Congress MLAs who recently switched sides; IPS officer P.C. Baranda and top businessman Dhanjibhai Patel are among those given tickets.
New Delhi: The BJP Friday released its first list of 70 candidates for the upcoming Gujarat assembly elections. Chief minister Vijay Rupani, deputy CM Nitin Patel and state BJP president Jitu Vaghani are contesting from their old seats — Rajkot West, Mahesana and Bhavnagar West, respectively.
Of the 70 names announced by the party, 49 are outgoing MLAs. There are 21 new names in the list, including six Congress MLAs who switched sides during the Rajya Sabha polls. C.K. Raulji, the Congress MLA from Godhra, is going to contest on a BJP ticket from the same place.
Others are Raghavjibhai Patel from Jamnagar Rural, Rajandrebhai Ranjitsinh Chavda from Himatnagar, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja from Jamnagar North, Ramsinh Parmar from Thasra and Mansinh Chahuan from Balasinor.
“The new candidates have been declared from the seats, which are currently held by the Congress,” deputy CM Nitin Patel told reporters.
P.C. Baranda, the IPS officer who served as SP of Chhota Udepur, resigned recently to contest assembly elections on a BJP ticket. Baranda had made it to the first list from his preferred seat of Bhiloda (reserved for scheduled tribe).
Leading Gujarati businessman and chairman of Makson Group, Dhanjibhai Patel, is all set to take electoral plunge by contesting on a BJP ticket from Wadhwan.
The assembly elections for 182 seats in Gujarat are to be held in two phases — on 9 and 14 December. The results will be declared on 18 December.
Meanwhile, the Congress is also holding a meeting in Delhi of the party screening committee to finalise the list of candidates. Party sources told ThePrint that 80 candidates have already been finalised while discussions are on to shortlist names for the remaining 102 seats.
The first list of the Congress could be released either late Friday evening or Saturday morning.