By Our Reporter
SHILLLONG, March 2: BJP gave Meghalaya a miss in its first list of candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, which it released on Saturday.
But it announced the names of its candidates in three of the Northeastern states — Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Tripura.
The list, which comprised names of 195 candidates, included heavyweights like Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well .
A party official said that four names from the state leadership of the BJP have been sent to the party high command for consideration.
The four aspirants are Cabinet Minister AL Hek, Advocate Fenela Lyngdoh Nonglait, former State BJP president Ernest Mawrie and a leader of the youth wing of the party, whose name was undisclosed.
The State BJP is optimistic that the second list will include names of party candidates from the two parliamentary seats in Meghalaya — Shillong and Tura.
In Arunachal, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju will contest the polls from Arunachal West while and Tapir Gao will contest from Arunachal East.
Union Minister and BJP’s Rajya Sabha member Sarbananda Sonowal will contest the polls from Dibrugarh seat in Assam, replacing incumbent party MP and Union Minister Rameswar Teli.
Apart from Sonowal, the BJP named 10 other candidates, including one woman, to contest the general elections from Assam which has 14 Lok Sabha seats.
The remaining three seats are left for BJP allies — Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL).
Other BJP candidates include Kripanath Mallah (Karimganj), Parimal Suklabaidya (Silchar), Amar Sing Tisso (Autonomous District ST), Bijuli Kalita Medhi (Gauhati), Dilip Saikia (Mangaldoi), Ranjit Dutta (Tezpur), Suresh Bora (Nowgong), Kamakhaya Prasad Tasa (Kaliabor), Topon Kumar Gogai (Jorhat), Sarbananda Sonowal (Dibrugarh) and Pradhan Baruah (Lakhimpur).
Biplab Kumar Deb will contest from Tripura West.