BJP releases second list, 96 more names

After a marathon meeting of its central election committee here, the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership cleared the names of 96 more candidates for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections and ensured seat-sharing arrangements with its allies like the Janata Dal (U) in Bihar and Mamata Bannerjee's Trinamul Congress in West Bengal.

As the party released two successive lists and declared the names of 236 candidates for Lok Sabha polls, the BJP leadership started facing rebellions of the sitting MPs who were denied ticket.

For instance, Union Minister of State for Shipping Dilip Gandhi has resigned from the council of ministers after he was denied the ticket from Ahmednagar. Chatrapal Singh, who was replaced by Kalyan Singh from Bulandshahar, was also likely to follow suit, BJP sources said.

However, the central election committee meeting took significant decisions on Madhya Pradesh from where three sitting MPs, including former state Chief Minister Sunderlal Patwa, have been dropped in favour of young members.

The committee also shifted flamboyant central minister Prahlad Patel from Balaghat to Chindwara "" a constituency considered to be the stronghold of Congress general secretary Kamal Nath. Patel's shifting to Chindwara is intended to create unsettling political ground for Kamal Nath in his constituency.

In West Bengal, the party has decided to contest only 13 seats . Candidates for 12 seats have been declared in today's list. Sitting MPs Satyabrata Mukherjee from Krishna Nagar and Tapan Sikdar from Dum Dum have been re-nominated. The remaining 29 seats in the state has been left for the Trinamul Congress.

In Assam, where the BJP expects maximum gains on account of the anti-incumbency wave against the Congress government, the party has fielded noted singer Bhupen Hazarika from Guwahati, replacing Vijaya Chakravarthy. Of the 14 seats in the state, the BJP intends to contest all.

For Bihar, where the National Democratic Alliance bagged 30 out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in the 1999 general elections, the BJP has released the names of nine candidates in addition to the names of three central ministers "" CP Thakur, Shahnawaz Husseain and Rajiv Pratap Rudi released yesterday, and changed only one sitting MP from Gaya.

However, the leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly, Sushil Modi, has been asked to contest from Bhagalpur. This implies that the party is keen on moving Modi out of Bihar and bring him at the Centre.

The party's decision on Bihar assumes significance in view of the fact that the Janata Dal (U) has already demanded 24 seats for itself, leaving 16 seats for the BJP. By all indications, the BJP has broadly agreed to the seat-sharing arrangement with the JD (U). In the post-election scenario, there is expected to be massive changes in the organisational structure of the party, sources say.

In Jharkhand, the BJP is expected to concede one seat for the JD (U) and contest the remaining 13 seats.

Party sources say the selection of candidates for Gujarat, where the party won 21 out of the 26 seats, was a difficult proposition as the state Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, was in favour of changing some of the sitting MPs.

At the end of the discussion, the party leadership decided to change two sitting MPs from Anand and Hari Bhai Patel whose chances of victory are bleak, according to party surveys. However, the remaining sitting MPs from the state have been re-nominated from their constituencies.