BJP Releases List of 77 Candidates for Chhattisgarh Polls, Names Contenders for Telangana & Mizoram

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party released its first list of 77 candidates for the assembly elections in Chhattisgarh on Saturday and announced to contest polls on 38 out of 119 seats in Telangana.

Among the 77 candidates announced out of a total of 90 Assembly segments, 14 are women candidates and 14 sitting MLAs have been replaced with new names, Union minister J P Nadda said. The list was finalised at the BJP's central election committee meeting that was chaired by party president Amit Shah and attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi among others.

Among those fielded by the BJP include former IAS officer O P Chaudhary and tribal leader Ramdayal Uike, who recently left the Congress and joined the BJP.

Announcing the list, Telangana BJP election in-charge Nadda further said that BJP will also contest Mizoram Assembly elections on 13 seats.

Eighteen naxal-affected constituencies will go to polls in the first phase on November 12, while the rest of the 72 constituencies would go to polls in the second phase on November 20.

Earlier in the day, Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party had also released its second list of 12 candidates. The party has forged an alliance with former chief minister Ajit Jogi's Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) and the Communist Party of India, and will contest 33 Assembly seats.

Meanwhile, nine more candidates have filed nomination papers for the first phase of Chhattisgarh polls. This takes the number of candidates who have filed their papers to 11.

On Saturday, two candidates each filed their papers for Rajnandgaon, Antagarh and Dantewada seats and one each for Khairagarh, Dongargarh and Dongargaon, an official said.

For Dantewada seat, Congress's Devti Karma and Communist Party of India's (CPI) Nanda Ram Sori filed their papers. Karma is the sitting Congress MLA from Dantewada. Others who filed nomination papers Saturday included Dinesh Singh (Shiv Sena) from Khairagarh and Rajkumar Sahu (Shiv Sena) from Dongargaon.

Nominations cannot be filed on Sunday, it being holiday, so only two days — October 22 and 23 — are now left for filing of nominations for the first phase, the official said.