Gujarat Elections 2017: BJP Releases Final List Of Candidates, No Mention Of Anandiben Patel In List

Interestingly, a three-day BJP meeting chaired by party chief Amit Shah held recently which selected candidates for the Gujarat Assembly elections 2017.

Image: Anandiben Patel (PTI/File)

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday released final list of its candidates for upcoming Gujarat Assembly elections but the name of former chief minister of the state Anandiben Patel given a miss. In other words, Anandiben Patel will not fight elections this time. Interestingly, a three-day BJP meeting chaired by party chief Amit Shah held recently which selected candidates for the Gujarat Assembly elections. Besides Rupani, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, former Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, BJP state president Jitu Vaghani, the Gujarat BJP in-charge Bhupendra Yadav and other senior party leaders also participated in the meeting. Elections are less than a month away, and like all parties, the BJP too is planning full-fledged for it. The party, though unwilling to admit, faces an anti-incumbency in the state where it has been in power for more than two decades. Many agitations depicting issues of various communities have surfaced after the exit of then Chief Minister and now Prime Minister Narendra Modi, from the state politics. The saffron party has to face many fronts other than the opposition Congress, like the Dalit community's ire, the recently evolved Karadia Rajput agitation against state president Jitu Vaghani, the Thakore community, which has been going against the saffron party. On top of that is the Patidar agitation, led by young turk Hardik Patel, who has pledged non-cooperation and opposition to the saffron party.