BJP team meets at PM house to finalise RS, MLC poll picks

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the elections to 24 Rajya Sabha seats and MLC polls in some states, BJP’s central election committee (CEC) met at PM Narendra Modi’s residence on Sunday to finalise the names of candidates.The CEC includes Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh and BJP president Nitin Nabin, and its meeting came a day before the filing of nomination for RS elections begins. Soon after the meeting, BJP released a list of its 10 candidates for MLC elections to 16 seats in Maharashtra, a day before the deadline for the filing of nomination.It is rare for BJP CEC members to hold a physical meeting for RS or MLC elections, and there is a view that top party functionaries might have also deliberated over other important political matters, including the impending overhaul in the organisation’s national team of office-bearers.The dispute between the state BJP brass and its two Maharashtra allies, Shiv Sena and NCP, over their share of MLC seats might have also prompted BJP brass to step in.Sena president and deputy CM Eknath Shinde had taken up the matter with Shah as the impasse continued.The 24 RS seats are spread across Andhra Pradesh (4), Gujarat (4), Karnataka (4), Madhya Pradesh (3), Rajasthan (3), Jharkhand (2), and there is one vacancy each in four northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram.