New Delhi, Mar 14: The two-day meeting of the BJP Central Election Committee which began here today, headed by BJP chief Venkaiah Naidu and all the members of election committee of the party met sans L K Advani, who is on a rath yatra. In this meeting, after a lot of deliberations, first list of 136 candidates from various states for Lok Sabha elections were finalised which were announced by party general secretary Pramod Mahajan in a press conference. The meeting finalised candidates from the crucial states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar and Gujarat.

The first list included 54 names from Uttar Pradesh. The Uttar Pradesh list included names of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who will contest from Lucknow followed by Dr M M Joshi to contest from Allahabad and Vinay Katiyar to contest from Lakhmipur Khiri. Former chief minister of UP Kalyan Singh will fight elections from Bulandshehr in western UP.

However, the meeting after hectic parleys decided not to field Law & Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley, Agriculture Minister Rajnath Singh, party general secretaries Pramod Mahajan and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi besides party incharge for UP Kalraj Mishra for the polls. These leaders will help the party to win elections.

Other important facts that Mahajan mentioned in his press conference were:

  • As of now five names have been finalised from Gujarat. These five names include L K Advani, who will contest from Gandhinagar.

  • BJP will contest from all seats in Jammu and Kashmir.

  • It has finalised 21 names out of 26 for Maharashtra. These 21 names include Ram Naik who will stand from North Mumbai and Jayanti Ben South Mumbai.

  • Six names out of seven have been finalised for Delhi. Who will be fielded from Chandni Chowk was not announced. Vijay Goel will contest from Sadar.

  • Party has named one name for Delhi byelection.

  • Three out of four names have been decided for Himachal Pradesh.

  • BJP will contest on both seats from Goa.

  • Eight out of nine names have been finalised for Orissa.

  • The party will fight on one seat each from Pondicherry, Chandigarh, Andaman and Nicobar.

  • In Uttaranchal party will contest elections from two seats. Names of Khanduri and Bacchi Singh Rawat appear in the first list.

  • In Tamil Nadu, the party will fight on all six seats.

  • Party has finalised nine names out of 11 for Chhattisgarh.

  • Party will be fielding one candidate from Punjab

  • Four names have been finalised for Bihar and three names for Madhya Pradesh