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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentary board, to meet in the national capital on Monday, could take a decision on announcing Kiran Bedi as the chief ministerial candidate of the party for the Delhi Assembly election.
The parliamentary board, along with the BJP central election committee, will also finalise the list of candidates. The polls are slated on February 7 to elect representatives to the 70-member Assembly.
The BJP, unlike the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party, is yet to announce any candidate. The filing of nominations started on January 15 and will continue till Wednesday.
The meeting on Monday will start in the evening and continued until late in the night, party sources said.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday indicated former Indian Police Service officer Bedi might be projected for the top post.
"So far, there is no decision. The parliamentary board will take a final call," Singh said. He was replying to a question on the possibility of the BJP projecting someone as its chief ministerial candidate.
The 12-member board comprises Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party president
Amit Shah, Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and others. The home minister, a two-time BJP president, said the party sometimes projects its chief ministerial candidate and sometimes not.
"In the case of Delhi, the parliamentary party will take the final decision," he said.
Bedi, who joined the party on Thursday, has also given broad hints that she could be the chief ministerial candidate.
At a meeting of the party's booth-level workers at its Delhi unit office, there were indications that Bedi might be declared its CM candidate. Both Bedi and Shah attended the event. Shah said there was "khalbali" or chaos in the Aam Aadmi Party after Bedi joined the BJP.
