BJP CEC likely to finalise first list of candidates for Maharashtra, Haryana Assembly polls today; Amit Shah to chair meeting

New Delhi: A meeting of BJP’s Central Election Committee (CEC) will take place on Sunday to finalise the list of candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra. The meeting, to be held at party headquarters in New Delhi will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP President Amit Shah, Working President JP Nadda among others, sources said on Saturday. Chief Ministers Devendra Fadnavis, Manohar Lal Khattar, state in-charges and state presidents of both the election-bound states will also attend the meeting. Assembly elections in both states will be held on 21 October while the results of the elections will be declared on 24 October. The term of the present Haryana Assembly expires on 2 November and that of Maharashtra Assembly on 9 November. [caption id=“attachment_6240981” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of BJP chief Amit Shah. Reuters[/caption] In Haryana, there are 90 Assembly constituencies, out of which 17 are reserved for candidates belonging to the Scheduled Caste category, while Maharashtra has 288 seats, of these 29 are reserved for the SC category and 25 for the ST category. The upcoming elections in both states are turning out to be a fierce battle between abrogation of Article 370 and the state of Indian economy. The BJP leaders have been raking up the issue in election campaigns while the Opposition parties are trying to corner the ruling party by highlighting the “economic slowdown”. The BJP will be contesting Haryana polls alone with the party banking on the clean image of Khattar and the development works done by his government. He has been building a narrative that his government has “stopped corruption, eliminated the culture of middlemen and made merit the basis of recruitment”. Khattar had recently said that the overwhelming support for the abrogation of Article 370 has broken all caste barriers in Haryana and the BJP’s popularity has soared across all sections ahead of the Assembly election. In 2014, the BJP formed its first majority government in the state by winning 47 seats in the 90-member Assembly. This time the party has set a target of winning 75 plus seats. In Maharashtra, the BJP and its ally Shiv Sena are yet to arrive at a consensus on the seat-sharing formula.  In 2014, both the Sena and BJP contested the elections separately and the BJP emerged as the single largest party with 122 seats followed by the Sena, Congress and the NCP after a four-way contest. Shiv Sena later joined the government. The BJP in Maharashtra is banking on images of Modi and Fadnavis, besides development works and achievements of both the Centre and the state governments. The two-state elections are going to be crucial for Congress and Nationalist Congress Party. These elections will be first after 2019 Lok Sabha elections where the Congress faced a major jolt. These elections will also be first for Congress under the presidentship of Sonia Gandhi who took over the reins of the grand old party from her son Rahul. In Haryana, the Congress has tried to strike a balance between its leaders with the party appointing former Union Minister Kumari Selja as the party’s state unit chief, replacing Ashok Tanwar. Former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was appointed as leader of its legislature party and chief of the election management committee. In Maharashtra, the Congress and the NCP have already sealed the deal to contest 125 seats each. The Opposition bloc will leave 38 seats for smaller allies.