BJP likely to announce civic poll list after Holi

New Delhi: Moving away from the earlier practice of announcing party candidates at the last minutes, the Delhi BJP is likely to announce the first list of candidates for the civic polls after Holi. Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari told this newspaper that the first list would be released around March 20. It was believed that the BJP will announce around 160 candidates in the first list and the remaining 112 in second list. Mr Tiwari, who was busy seeking votes for party candidates in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, held a series of meeting with Delhi BJP leaders and workers. The party’s weekly meeting, which started at around 4 pm, lasted for over four hours with a short break at around 5.30 pm. “We want to make the whole ticket distribution exercise transparent and asked the workers to give everything in writing. Workers will be given priority and nepotism will not be promoted,” said Mr Tiwari.

Over thousand of ticket seekers have submitted their application. On Wednesday, about 560 probable submitted their application to the city BJP president.

Mr Tiwari and many in his absence submitted their application to Shyam Jaju, party in-charge. “Final tally of application will be available by weekend,” said Mr Tiwari.

The BJP, which ruling the municipal bodies in the city for last 10 years, usually used to announce its candidate at the last moment. But sources said that new practice to announce candidate at the earliest give ample time to contestant work hard on ground to enhance their chances to win the election.