Himachal election 2022: BJP releases list of 62 candidates; CM Jai Ram Thakur to contest from Seraj

New Delhi, Oct 19: After much discussion, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday released its first list of 62 candidates for the polls to the 68-member Himachal Pradesh Assembly.

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur has been fielded from his constituency Seraj. Anil Sharma, son of former Union minister Sukh Ram, has been fielded from Mandi.

The list, which features five women candidates, was finalised in Monday's meeting of the party's Central Election Committee (CEC), headed by party chief JP Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The BJP CEC has dropped some incumbent MLAs from the list.

Amit Shah launched the BJP's campaign song for the assembly elections 'Himachal Ki Pukaar Phir BJP Sarkar'.

The Congress is confident of winning the polls with a two-thirds majority. Priyanka Gandhi will be campaigning for the party across the state. The grand old party on Tuesday released a list of 46 candidates for the assembly polls.

The Aam Aadmi Party, which is trying to make a foray into the state's political landscape is fully confident of getting the people's mandate.

Himachal Pradesh will go to polls on November 12 in a single phase. Results of the assembly polls will be declared on December 8.

The last date for filing nominations is October 25.

In the last assembly elections of 2017, BJP won comfortably by winning 44 seats in the 68-member house. The Congress party bagged only 21 seats in that election.