Srinagar, Mar 16 (KNS): The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentary board meeting is underway in New Delhi to finalize the first list of the candidates for the Lok Sabha polls. The list will also include Jammu and Kashmir candidates.
The election for 543 parliamentary seats will be held in seven phases till May 19 and the counting of votes will be taken up on May 23.
Talking to Kashmir News service (KNS) from New Delhi, BJP general secretary organization Ashok Koul who is also part of the meeting said that the list of the Jammu and Kashmir candidates are expected to be announced tonight.
BJP National vice president and Kashmir affairs in charge Avinash Rai khana along with state unit president Ravinder Raina and general secretary (organization) Ashok Koul left for Delhi on Friday evening. “The JK BJP leadership has been called to Delhi to finalise the candidates in the parliamentary board meeting,” Koul said.
Sources said that before leaving to New Delhi, the core group meeting was held under the leadership of the party’s election in charge of J&K Avinash Rai Khanna, wherein the BJP discussed names of the candidates.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have already said that it will contest all the six parliamentary seats in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). “The main task before the party is to retain the three seats which the BJP had won in the 2014 elections,” the source said. In the 2014 parliamentary polls, the BJP won three seats two from Jammu and one from Ladakh. “We will be announcing candidates for all six Lok Sabha seats in the state. We will also be contesting three seats in the Valley,” senior state BJP leader and former Deputy chief minister Kavinder Gupta said.
Meanwhile according to reports the names of sitting MP Jugal Kishore Sharma, state unit president Ravinder Raina, Narindra Singh and Sat Sharma were discussed for the Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha seat. Similarly, the names of Union minister Dr Jitendra Singh, Shakti Parihar and Sunil Sharma were discussed for the prestigious Udhampur-Doda constituency. “The final decision regarding repeating or replacing the sitting MPs will be taken by the parliamentary board tonight,” said a senior leader.
The names of MLC Chering Dorjay, Jamyang Tsering Namgyal, Gal P Wangyal and Dorjey Angchuk were discussed for the Ladakh seat, the report said. (KNS)