The decision was taken at party's two-day Central Election Committee meeting that started today under chairmanship of BJP chief Kushabhau Thakre and attended by top party leaders including Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani and Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi. Vajpayee is thus likely to seek re-election from Lucknow and Advani from Gandhinagar.

The meeting reviewed the State-wise political situation, monitored progress of seat-sharing and deliberated on the list of candidates recommended by various State Election Committees of the party. The BJP will release the first list of candidates tomorrow, party spokesman M Venkaiah Naidu said.

The meeting is considering candidates for seats in the first and second phase of elections on September 4 and 8 besides the seats won by the BJP in the 1998election. The Election Committee today discussed candidates for North-Eastern States, West Bengal, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Orissa.

BJP has decided to field all seven outgoing members of Parliament out of its quota of nine seats in Orissa with its ally Biju Janata Dal contesting the remaining 12 seats. The party has decided to field one of its unsuccessful candidates while replacing the other one, a senior BJP leader said.

The BJP was still discussing the possibility of fielding its candidate for Jazpur (reserved), which was contested by the BJP last time. BJP leaders feel their candidate Anchal Dal, who has recently defected to it from Janata Dal, was better placed to win the seat, he said.

The BJP, which contested all the 14 seats winning only one last time, will contest 13 this time, leaving Kokrajhar for an independent tribal candidate, A S Biswamuthiary, who voted in favour of the Vajpayee Government during the motion of confidence which it lost by onevote.

The party may considering leaving the Autonomous Council seat for outgoing ASDC MP, Jayanta Rongpi if he pledged to support the Vajpayee-led Government after the polls, BJP leaders claimed.

Naidu, however, denied any infighting in the State units that compelled sitting MPs like Sushma Swaraj, Sumitra Mahajan, Sartaj Singh and K L Sharma, to drop out of the elections. Whether any of these MPs was unwilling to contest will only be known when statewise discussions are held, he said.

MPCC to ask Sonia to finalise list

MUMBAI: The election committee of Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee on Tuesday unanimously resolved to "request AICC president Sonia Gandhi to finalise the list of candidates for Lok Sabha and Assembly seats in Maharashtra". MPCC chief of media and publicity Suresh Kalmadi said that the resolution was moved by senior Congress leader Shankarrao Chavan and seconded by Swarupsingh Naik and Vilashrao Deshmukh, both conveners of the state election committee.