New Delhi, Nov 09: Jalim Singh, brother of Union Minister Prahlad Patel, former Delhi University student leaders and ABVP members Monica Arora and Vijay Jolly figure in the list of 30 BJP candidates for the assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh and Delhi announced here today. The 21 nominations for Delhi and nine for Madhya Pradesh were cleared by the party's Central Election Committee which met at the residence of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, chaired by party president M Venkaiah Naidu.

In an apparent indication of differences within the party over ticket allocation, the Delhi leadership issued a list of 22 candidates, but the official list contained only 21 names leaving out Mandawali assembly seat in East Delhi. According to the list released by the state leaders, the candidate for Mandawali was Virender Juyal, a close aide of party General Secretary Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. But, the list given at the party headquarters had omitted the seat.

Among the nine candidates for Madhya Pradesh in the fourth list, two are women and three are scheduled castes. In Delhi, of the 21 nominations cleared by the election committee, three are women and seven belong to Scheduled Castes.

With the release of the two lists today, 11 seats in Madhya Pradesh and ten in Delhi remain to be decided.

In Madhya Pradesh, the party has cleared 219 seats for the 230-member assembly while for Delhi it has cleared 56 for the 70-member assembly leaving four to its ally Akali Dal (Badal).

Bureau Report