The suspense over Narendra Modi’s constituency will extend at least into the weekend. The third list of BJP candidates today did not include seats for Modi, L K Advani or Rajnath Singh while naming Sushma Swaraj for Vidisha. The BJP central election committee is likely to finalise candidates for Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat in its next meetings (March 15 and 19). Leaders from both states volunteered to offer their seats to Modi after Murli Manohar Joshi indicated his reluctance to vacate Varanasi. Gujarat BJP general secretary Vijay Rupani said today leaders from Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Vadodara and Surat are keen to get Modi to contest from there. In UP, Lalji Tandon has already offered his Lucknow seat. Amit Shah, in charge of the party’s UP affairs, and party leaders Ramlal and Laxmikant Bajpai had met RSS leaders Suresh Soni and Krishna Gopal in Delhi Wednesday to discuss a strategy to tackle the disgruntlement among senior leaders. Yashwant Sinha’s son Jayant will contest Hazaribag, on the former finance minister’s request. Pramod Mahajan’s daughter Poonam will contest against Priya Dutt in Mumbai North Central. Raman Singh’s son Abhishek was considered for Rajnandgaon at the expense of the sitting MP, the indecision leading to the postponement of the Chhattisgarh list. In Darjeeling, S S Ahluwalia will contest with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s support. The list has 97 candidates for nine states: Assam (6), Karnataka (5), Kerala (14), MP (24), Maharashtra (2), Jharkhand (13), Lakshdweep (1), Bengal (7) and Bihar (25). Among the last is the party’s only Muslim MP, Shahnawaz Hussain, from Bhagalpur. Left out from these states are Patna Sahib, Bhopal and Jamshedpur. Bhopal MP Kailash Joshi has requested Advani to contest from his seat. About Patna Sahib, party sources said they were weighing the options of renominating Shatrughan Sinha and fielding him from Delhi. For Jamshedpur, the party is toying with the idea of fielding former chief minister Arjun Munda who, it is learnt, is not keen to contest. The party, which will contest 30 seats in Bihar, named nine new BJP entrants among today’s 25: R K Singh (Arrah), Ajay Nishad (Muzaffarpur), Janak Chamar (Gopalganj), O P Yadav (Siwan), Putul Singh (Banka), Ram Kripal Yadav (Patliputra), Chedi Paswan (Sasaram), Sushil Singh (Aurangabad) and Vijay Kushwaha (Madhepura). Rajiv Pratap Rudy will contest against Rabri Devi in Saran. Giriraj Singh, given Nawada, is learnt to be planning to meet Rajnath and demand Begusarai. In Karnataka, the party has fielded Shoba Karandlaje in Udupi-Chikmagalur and accommodated B S Yeddyurappa’s demand to field G S Basavaraj in Tumkur. Bellary has been kept out, with the BJP waiting for B Sreeramulu to merge his BSR Congress. The BJP parliamentary board, which met ahead of the election panel meeting, is learnt to have discussed alliances in the wake of Sushma’s objections of tying up with parties without a discussion at the central level. In MP, the party has dropped four sitting MPs. Bajrang Dal chief Jaibhan Singh Pawaiya will contest against Jyotiraditya Scindia, having contested against Madhavrao Scindia too. Bhagirath Prasad, who joined the BJP after the Congress gave him a ticket, will contest from Bhind.
