Polls a year away, BJP begins search for 117 candidates

Vishav Bharti
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, November 10

After break-up of alliance with the SAD, the BJP has started an internal survey to find candidates for all 117 Assembly constituencies.

According to sources, party’s senior leaders, including former ministers Madan Mohan Mittal and Manoranjan Kalia, have been making rounds of various constituencies and have asked local leaders to find the suitable candidates.

Talking to The Tribune, Mittal confirmed that the exercise was part of the plan to contest all 117 constituencies. “We are trying to gauge the mood on the ground and studying the local factors to select candidates,” he said.

He said the exercise would also help involve all workers ahead of the elections.

One of the district presidents of the party confirmed that unlike the past practice of fielding only committed BJP workers or candidates with RSS background, the party’s top leadership has been asking leaders to remain open to even party sympathisers. “We will be considering even the turncoats,” he said, wishing not to be named.

Mittal said in the forthcoming elections, the party would contest on five times more seats than it had been contesting as a junior alliance partner with the SAD for the past three decades.

The Shiromani Akali Dal was considered the BJP’s oldest ally. In Punjab, SAD would offer only 23 seats to the BJP. On several occasions, the BJP had tried to bargain for more seats but always received a cold shoulder.