Jaipur: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has started forming panels of probable candidates for Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan. The central leadership of BJP is likely to declare candidates for 18 out of a total of 25 seats in Rajasthan in the first phase. These are the seats on which the BJP is finding itself safe and strong.
"Based on survey report and performance, the state BJP has started forming panels on all the seats. These panels will be placed before the Central Election Committee which will finalise the candidates," said a senior leader of the party.
The core committee of the state unit of the party has met twice in the last week. After the visit of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the BJP State Core Committee meeting was held at the state party office on February 22 last week. After that, on February 24, the meeting of the State Core Committee was held in Delhi under the chairmanship of National President JP Nadda, in which Shah was also present.
Sources said that the party leadership has clarified the norms on which the names of the candidates are to be suggested. One or two meetings would be held in Jaipur in which the panel of candidates can be finalised unanimously.
The meeting of the Central Election Committee is proposed for February 29 in Delhi. In this meeting, the BJP is expected to declare candidates for many Lok Sabha seats across the country including Rajasthan.
The sources said that on the lines of assembly elections, the BJP has also classified 25 Lok Sabha seats of the state into A and B categories. The classification has been done based on previous Lok Sabha results and recently held assembly elections.
The A category seats are Jaipur City, Jaipur Rural, Jhalawar-Baran, Kota-Bundi, Bhilwara, Chittorgarh, Ajmer, Pali, Jodhpur, Jalore, Bikaner, Udaipur, Dungarpur-Banswara, Sriganganagar-Hanumangarh, Churu and Rajsamand
Whereas Karauli-Dholpur, Dausa, Bharatpur, Tonk-Sawai Madhopur, Barmer, Alwar, Sikar, Jhunjhunu and Nagaur Lok Sabha seats have been kept in the B category. In the 2019 elections, BJP had left the Nagaur seat for Hanuman Beniwal's party RLP, but this time BJP will field candidates on all 25 seats.
Notably, the BJP had won all the seats in the last two' Loksabha elections in the state so expectations are quite high this time especially as the party is in power in the state.
