With the Election Commission issuing the notification for the first phase of the Gujarat Assembly elections, the BJP and the Congress are set to announce this week their candidates for the 89 constituencies in the Saurashtra and south Gujarat regions.
The voting for this phase will be held on December 9. November 21 is the last day for filing of nomination papers.
Polling will be held in the districts of Surat, Valsad, Tapi, Narmada, Bharuch, Navsari, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Dwarka, Junagadh, Amreli and Kutch.
BJP meeting
The BJP national parliamentary board is scheduled to meet in New Delhi where the party will deliberate on probable candidates and clear the names.
“Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and State party president Jitu Vaghani will attend the parliamentary board meeting,” a Gujarat BJP leader said.
The BJP has prepared a list of names of probable candidates at a series of meetings of the State parliamentary board. On Monday also, BJP president Amit Shah held a meeting with State leaders to discuss candidate selection at Mr. Rupani’s residence in Gandhinagar.
Party insiders say the ruling party had discussed three names for each constituency and finally a panel for each seat was prepared to be forwarded to the national parliamentary board for a final decision.
Similarly, the Congress meeting is slated for November 16 to finalise and release the names.
“We have a meeting on November 16 to give a final shape to the candidate list,” Gujarat Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki said.
Mr. Solanki and Gujarat election in-charge Ashok Gehlot on Tuesday reached Delhi for the meeting. “Our list will be announced by Ashok Gehlot on either November 16 or 17,” Mr. Solanki said.
Sonia clears names
On November 10, the Central Election Committee of the Congress, headed by party president Sonia Gandhi, cleared 70 to 80 candidates, but the list has not been released.
“The candidates cleared included those for seats in both phases,” a Congress insider involved in the selection process told The Hindu .
Three Independent candidates have filed their nomination papers.
