Ahead of the crucial Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party is holding a core committee meeting at party headquarters in New Delhi.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP chief JP Nadda, UP election in charge Dharmendra Pradhan, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and other BJP leaders arrive for the core committee meeting.
The first meeting was held earlier in the day with Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the election in-charge of Uttar Pradesh. In this meeting, BJP's alliance partners, the Nishad Party leaders and Apna Dal President Anupriya Patel were present along with state Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya.
As per sources in Apna Dal, looking at developments in the meeting first today, the party hopes to get double the number seats this time as compared to previous elections in which they contested on 11 seats. Meanwhile, the party has demanded 36 assembly seats in the forthcoming polls. However, the discussion is still underway.
"Winnability will be the criteria. We will put our candidates in the fray of elections on the seats where there is more possibility of winning. Similarly, BJP will do that same for their candidates. This time, we will fight the polls on twice the number of seats," sources in Apna Dal said.
According to sources, Apna Dal has demanded to contest on seats in Kanpur, Mauranipur, Jhansi, Nanpara, Bahraich, Sewapuri Rohaniya Pindra in Banaras, Sorao Handia in Allahabad, Shohratgarh in Gorakhpur, Nautanwa, Kushinagar and on some other seats from Lucknow to Mohanlalganj.
"We have demanded to contest on 36 seats. The discussions are still underway. It is not game of number but winnability. This time, Purvanchal is a very important. Thus, numbers don't matter to us. Unnecessary names of the candidate will not be required either by the BJP or us. We are discussing on each seat for 30-45 minutes and all angles are being looked at," sources said.
Elections for the 403 Assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases starting February 10. The polling in Uttar Pradesh will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27 and March 3 and 7 in seven phases.
The counting of votes will take place on March 10.
( With inputs from ANI )
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