New Delhi: Putting an end to days of speculations, the BJP finally announced Monday its candidate list for the October 21 Haryana Assembly elections.
Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar will be fighting from his present Karnal seat, while wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt, who joined the BJP last week, is the nominee from the Baroda assembly seat.
Sandeep Singh, the former captain of the Indian hockey team who joined the BJP along with Yogeshwar Dutt, has been given a ticket from Pihua Assembly constituency, while wrestler Babita Phogat, who had joined the BJP earlier, will be contesting from Dadri. The Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala is being fielded from Tohana.
It should be stated here that 38 sitting MLAs are being repeated by the party, seven others have been replaced.
Two candidates from the Muslim community have been given the ticket this time by the saffron party.
The names were approved by the BJP’s central election committee that met here Sunday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party president Amit Shah, working president JP Nadda, and Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari were some of the leaders who were present in the CEC meeting.
The ruling BJP had convened the crucial CEC meeting Sunday, after some delay as the Prime Minister was away in the US for more than a week and only returned Saturday evening.
The saffron party had precious little time left, as the last date for filing nominations is October 4.
The 90-member Haryana Assembly will go to the polls on October 21, while the results will be declared on October 24.
The BJP, however, hasn’t released its Maharashtra list. Party national general secretary Arun Singh said: “We will come up with the Maharashtra list very soon.”
IANS