BJP to announce its most crucial list of candidates today

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is set to announce its third and the most exhaustive list of candidates on Thursday. But announcement of candidates for some of the seats of UP may be delayed as the party was still working on important leaders of other parties to join BJP.

The BJP has until now announced candidates for 107 seats across India but not for some of the states key to its 'Mission 272+' plan like UP, Bihar, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Haryana.

Sources said the party was likely to declare its candidates for most of the Hindi heartland seats on Thursday, as also contentious seats like Bellary in Karnataka. The list is likely to end speculation over whether BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi will at all contest from two seats, including Varanasi.

Party sources said Thursday's Central Election Committee would in all likelihood would also be the last. Most CEC members, barring those not contesting, will also move out to their respective election constituencies.

Sources said the CEC is likely to empower party president Rajnath Singh to declare names for the remainder of the constituencies not cleared by tomorrow's CEC meeting.

The seats to watch out for would be Bellary where a decision has been delayed after party leader Sushma Swaraj objected to merger of the BSR Congress and its leader BS Sriramulu who counts illegal mining barons Reddy brothers as his benefactors. BJP's Karnataka unit was keen that BSR Congress is accepted in the BJP fold and Sriramulu contested from Bellary.

Other seats to watch out for would Delhi's seven seats, Amritsar in Punjab where the Shiromani Akali Dal wants the BJP to shift sitting MP Navjot Singh Sidhu, UP's Kanpur where Murli Manohar Joshi is likely to be shifted from Varanasi and Haryana's 10 seats where the BJP is making efforts to have a grand alliance of its ally Haryana Janhit Congress and itself with the Om Prakash Chautala-led INLD.

The list would also reveal the contours of BJP's alliances with Telagu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh and smaller parties like DMDK, MDMK and PMK in Tamilnadu.