Smarting after its poor showing in the recent Lok Sabha polls, the BJP is planning to allot half its seats to fresh faces in the Assembly polls.

BJP national general secretary and former deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde, who is in charge of the party’s polls campaign in the state, said the party would nominate 50 per cent fresh candidates, with some sitting MLAs likely to be dropped in favour of new faces. “50 per cent of those who had contested the polls last time will be replaced,” Munde told The Indian Express.

Munde, who had won the Beed seat in the Lok Sabha polls, is said to be eager to field either daughter Pankaja Palwe Munde or nephew Dhananjay Munde from the Parli Assembly constituency. He said that women will also be given adequate representation in the list of party candidates.

The BJP, which had 13 MPs from Maharashtra in 2004, saw the numbers going down to nine in the recent Lok Sabha polls, owing primarily to the reverses in Vidarbha.

A BJP leader said the party needed the infusion of “fresh blood” in its ranks and the issue needed to be dealt on a “case by case basis.” He added that the sitting MLAs would not be dropped on the basis of the number of terms they had in the state legislature.

However, the move to drop sitting MLAs may intensify the factional war in the BJP, led by Munde and state unit chief Nitin Gadkari.

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