Stating this at a press conference here today, party State unit president Daya Singh Sodhi, also president of the five-member Election Committee, said Khanna, Kamal Choudhary and he had been recommended as the party candidates from Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur and Amritsar respectively, to the BJP parliamentary board. The board would formally announce their candidatures during its two-day meeting scheduled to be held at New Delhi on August 2 and 3, he said.

Asked about the reported BJP claim on Jalandhar seat which was won by former prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral last time, Sodhi said the Akali-BJP alliance would contest the seat at all costs.

He claimed that the assertion by Akali Finance Minister Captain Kanwaljit Singh that Jalandhar would be contested by an Akali candidate could not be takenseriously.

Such a decision, he said, has to be taken by the Punjab Chief Minister and Akali Dal party president Parkash Singh Badal.