The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday released its first list of candidates for the Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram Assembly elections after long deliberations at a central election committee (CEC) meeting of the party. The party announced names of 77 candidates for Chhattisgarh, 38 for Telangana and 13 for Mizoram.
Releasing the list of 38 candidates after the CEC meeting attended among others by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP Chief Amit Shah, Union Minister JP Nadda told reporters, "The party has considered the aspirations of our dedicated workers in Telangana region. Adequate representation has been given to the representatives of all communities.”
The party has given the first round of tickets to leaders who have a good chance of winning.
All sitting MLAs including Telangana BJP President Dr K Laxman from Musheerabad constituency, got a ticket. G Kishan Reddy was renominated from Amberpet while NVSS Prabhakar is the party’s candidate again from Uppal. Chintala Ramachandra Reddy managed to secure his nomination for Khairatabad again as well.
BJP MLC N Ramachander Rao was given a ticket for the Malkajgiri Assembly constituency. Actor-politician Babu Mohan, who had recently jumped to the party after being denied a TRS ticket, was given a nomination from Andhole, a seat reserved for the SC community.
It is also important to note that controversial legislator from Goshamahal, T Raja Singh, also managed to get a nomination from the party, even though he had attempted to resign from the BJP in August this year.
Raja Singh is a known offender, who has several cases pending against him related to injuring or defiling a place of worship with intent to insult a religion, attempt to murder cases and promoting enmity between religions, as per his affidavit submitted during his nomination in 2014 assembly elections.
Meanwhile, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, who is seeking his fourth consecutive term, will contest from the Rajnandgaon seat.
Among the 77 candidates announced out of a total of 90 Assembly seats in Chhattisgarh, 14 are women candidates and 14 sitting MLAs have been replaced with new names.
Nadda also said the BJP will also contest the Mizoram Assembly elections on 13 seats. Elections in Chhattisgarh are scheduled in two phases -- on November 12 and November 20, while the polling in Mizoram and Telangana will take place on November 28 and December 7, respectively.
The counting of votes will take place on December 11.
IANS inputs