The Hindu : Pandya not in fourth list too

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 24, 2002

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Pandya not in fourth list too

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI NOV. 23. The former State Home Minister, Haren Pandya, failed to find mention in the fourth list of the candidates for the coming Gujarat Assembly elections which was released by the BJP here this evening.

With the latest list, the party has announced its candidates for all but four Assembly seats in Gujarat for the December 12 polls. The four constituencies where the BJP still remains undecided are: Ellisbridge, Veeramgaon, Vadodara and Biloda.

Briefing reporters at the party headquarters, the BJP general secretary and spokesperson, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, said candidates for the four remaining Assembly constituencies would be decided soon. But he parried questions on why Haren Pandya's candidature was not decided for his constituency of Ellisbridge.

With the fourth list of candidates for 11 seats, the party has announced candidates for 178 Assembly seats in Gujarat.

Mr. Naqvi said the State Election Committee was yet to send the panel of names for the remaining four Assembly seats to the Central Election Committee.

The prominent Assembly constituencies in today's list is Godhra from where Hareshbhai Bhatt will contest. There are three sitting MLAs in the list — Mukeshbhai Zaveri from Bhuj, Dhanrajbhai Kela from Wadhwan and Jayantibhai Kavadia from Halvad.

Mr. Naqvi said the party president also approved the name of Punjaji Thakor for the Lok Sabha constituency of Mehsana where byelection would be held on December 12. Attempting a high-voltage campaign for the Gujarat Assembly polls, top leadership of the BJP, including the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, would address public meetings in the State on November 30.

Mr. Naqvi said the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee's programme in Gujarat was still being chalked out and it would be announced soon.

While Mr. Advani would launch the campaign in Rajkot and Kutch, other Central Ministers and party leaders, including M. Venkaiah Naidu, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, Uma Bharati, Arun Jaitley and Pramod Mahajan would address public meetings in Gujarat on November 30 at different places.

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