The Central Election Committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party literally burnt midnight oil to select the rest 167 candidates for the next four phases of Assembly poll in West Bengal. So far, the party has released the list of 127 candidates for 294-member House.
The CEC meeting which started on March 17 lasted till about 4:00 in the morning of March 18, that is Thursday.
It was presided over by the party president J P Nadda and attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah.
However, reports said that Modi and Shah had left the meeting earlier and it was left up to Nadda to carry it out with the leaders of West Bengal unit to discuss till early morning the revolt in the state BJP.
Media reports suggest that the party may field a couple of more members of Parliament as it is facing serious shortage of formidable candidates against the Trinamool Congress which had already released the names of all its 291 candidates more than a week back.
Incidentally, the meeting took place when later on Thursday PM Modi was to address a public meeting in Purulia in West Bengal and at Karimganj in Assam.
Meanwhile, three people were injured in bombardment outside the house of Barrackpore MP Arjun Singh who is also the state vice-president of the party. It needs to be mentioned that on March 15 last Arjun Singh along with former Union Minister Mukul Roy and another BJP leader Shiv Prakash were roughed up by party supporters at its office at Hastings in Kolkata. The party old guards are upset over the denial of tickets to committed and loyal leaders. It needs to be mentioned that both Arjun Singh and Mukul Roy were, till some years back, with the Trinamool Congress.
