The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its third list of 12 candidates on 14 November night for the upcoming Gujarat Assembly elections.

The new list features the OBC leader, Alpesh Thakor, from Gandhinagar South seat. Earlier, Thakor had stood from Radhanpur in North Gujarat in a bypoll, which he lost to Congress’s Raghu Desai.

With the third list, the BJP has so far declared 178 candidates for the two-phase polls to the 182-member Assembly.

Alpesh Thakor had won from the Radhanpur Assembly seat in 2017 on a Congress ticket, but resigned in 2019 as an MLA and joined the BJP.

The latest list includes two women, taking the number of female candidates fielded by the BJP to 17 so far. The party has fielded Ritaben Patel from Gandhinagar North and Rajul Desai from Patan.

In Jhalod, where sitting Congress MLA Bhavesh Katara crossed over to the BJP last week, the ruling party has fielded Mahesh Bhuriya.

The party has fielded another Thakor community member, Bakaji Thakor, from Kalol in Gandhinagar district.

The BJP has given ticket to its Vadodara mayor Keyur Roakadia, in place of sitting MLA Jitendra Sukhadia, from the Sayajigunj Assembly segment. Sukhadia has decided not to fight the 2022 elections due to health issues.

It has fielded Babu Singh Jhadav from Vatva in place of senior leader Pradeepsinh Jadeja, who was a minister in the erstwhile Vijay Rupani government, and Jayantibhai Rathwa from Jetpur (ST) where he will take on Leader of Opposition in the Gujarat Assembly Sukhram Rathwa of the Congress.

The ruling party had declared 160 names in the first list, six in the second and 12 in the third list.

(with inputs from PTI)