Gandhinagar: Among those who are dropped in the first list of candidates of BJP are Arvind Raiyani (Rajkot East), Govind Patel (Rajkot South), Brijesh Merja (Morbi), Vasan Ahir (Anjar), Hakubha Jadeja (Jamnagar North), Atmaram Parmar (Gadhda), Saurabh Patel (Botad), Piyush Desai (Navsari), Balram Thawani (Naroda), Kaushik Patel (Naranpura), Suresh Patel (Maninagar), Shashikant Pandya (Deesa), Dhanji Patel (Wadhvan), Madhu Srivastav( Waghodia), Nimaben Acharya (Bhuj), Shambhuji Thakor (Gandhinagar South), Kishor Chauhan (Vejalpur), Rakesh Shah (Ellisbridge), Hitu Kanodiya (Idar).

The party announced 160 of 182 candidates today for upcoming State assembly polls. The party has dropped a total 38 sitting MLAs while continuing 69 sitting MLAs. According to Gujarat BJP in-charge Bhupender Yadav, party leader Vijaybhai Rupani (Rajkot), Nitin Patel (Mahesana), Saurabh Patel (Botad), RC Faldu (Jamnagar), Pradipsinh Jadeja (Vatva) and Kaushik Patel (Naranpura) had written letters to party leadership and conveyed their wish for not to contest the election. They had urged the party to choose new faces.

DeshGujarat