By Toshi Mandola
New Delhi [India], March 19 : Following multiple core group meetings, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) convened a meeting of its Central Election Committee (CEC) at the party headquarters in the National Capital on Wednesday.
BJP National President Nitin Nabin led the meeting while senior leaders of the party, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Ministers Bhupender Yadav, Mansukh L Mandaviya, MoS Sarbananda Sonowal, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, BS Yediyurappa, Shobha Karandlaje, Sadananda Master M, Baijayant Panda, Shantanu Thakur, Aparajita Sarangi, and other senior leaders were also in attendance.
The CEC meeting focused on a discussion over candidates and the number of seats to be contested in the poll-bound states of Assam, Keralam, West Bengal and Puducherry.
Sources in the party told ANI, that the BJP will be contesting 89 seats in Assam. Discussions took place on the choice of candidates at the CEC meeting today, with the final list expected to be released soon.
For the state of Keralam, the first list of candidates for 47 seats was announced on Monday. As per sources, the names of the remaining candidates were finalised today, with the list expected to be released in the coming two days.
During the meeting, the BJP also finalised its candidates for Puducherry polls. The party also gave the green signal to candidates for the remaining seats in West Bengal. BJP had earlier released its first list of 144 candidates for the state on Monday, following the BJP's core group meeting. Following today's meeting, the BJP will soon announce the names of its remaining candidates for West Bengal in a second list.
Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had earlier announced the poll schedule for multiple states, with Assam, Keralam and Puducherry polls to be held on April 9, while Tamil Nadu polls will take place on the 23rd.

In West Bengal, voting will be conducted in two phases on the 23rd and 29th of April.

In the contest between the BJP and Congress, the latter has had multiple leaders leave the party and join the ranks of the Assam BJP, with Pradyut Bordoloi joining the party most recently.
In West Bengal, the BJP has called for TMC to be thrown out and their "sins" to be washed away so that a "double engine" government can bring in a new era of development in the state.
BJP has released its first list of 144 candidates for the West Bengal assembly elections. The state will see another face-off between the BJP's Suvendu Adhikari and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for Bhabanipur (or Bhowanipore), the constituency currently represented by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief, which is also the latter's home turf.