BJP President Rajnath Singh, party's PM candidate Narendra Modi, LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley during party's Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting in New Delhi on Thursday
The BJP is staring at trouble within over the choice of its candidates for next month's national election, with tussles brewing over many prominent seats.
The party, which is hoping to make good on a perceived wave in its favour in this election, is yet to decide on seats in key states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. An NDTV opinion poll shows the BJP-led National Democratic Alliannce winning 166 of 319 seats surveyed, with big gains in Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
(Read)In the race for BJP tickets, seats for
Narendra Modi, its prime ministerial candidate, LK Advani, Rajnath Singh and Murli Manohar Joshi are yet to be announced.
After releasing a
list of 97 candidates on Thursday, top BJP leaders in the Central Election Committee will meet again on Saturday to deal with more controversial seats.
(Read)After its first meeting, the party's election panel is no closer to revealing Mr Modi's seats. The party is said to be considering Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh for him, and sources said he might also choose to contest from either Ahmedabad East or Vadodara in Gujarat, his home state.
But fielding Mr Modi from Varanasi will mean uprooting sitting MP and senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi, who may then have to shift to Kanpur, where union minister and Congress leader Sriprakash Jaiswal has won the last three elections.
The party is also thinking of fielding its chief Rajnath Singh from Lucknow, but sources say Lalji Tandon,who represents the constituency in the Lok Sabha, has indicated that he may vacate his seat only for Mr Modi, not for Rajnath Singh.
The BJP is also confronting tough decisions in Bihar, where it will contest 30 of 40 seats.
It is yet to decide on its candidate for the Patna Sahib seat currently held by the party's Shatrughan Sinha. Senior leader Ananth Kumar said any decision on a candidate would be taken "in consultation" with the actor-turned-politician.
The party's candidate for the Nawada seat, Giriraj Singh, is said to be upset as he wanted to contest from Begusarai. "It is not right to take such decisions without consulting us," he told reporters.