Kolkata, At a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) West Bengal unit leaders are busy holding parleys with the the party's Central Election Committee (CEC) in Delhi, the party insiders said that it is likely to give equal importance to both old and newly-inducted members as candidates for the first two phases of the state Assembly elections.

The saffron camp is likely to announce the names of its candidates for the first two phase of the high-voltage West Bengal elections on Thursday.

West Bengal will go to polls in eight phases between March 27 and April 29. Counting of votes will take place on May 2.

The BJP's core committee on Wednesday met and discussed the candidates for the first and second phase of the election in Bengal. The party's Central Election Committee (CEC) that takes the final call on who will contest from which constituency also held a meeting in the national capital on Thursday evening to finalise the candidates list for 60 state legislative assembly seats.

Sources said that newly-inducted BJP leader Rajib Banerjee said that Suvendu Adhikari had evinced interest to contest from his home constituency Nandigram already. He had expressed that interest to senior party leaders in the BJP.

Banerjee also said that he also wanted to contest from his old constituency for Domjur in Howrah district. The issue was not discussed in the Thursday's meeting as Howrah will go to polls in the fourth phase.

Sources said that many Bengali celebrities from the local film and television industry who had joined the saffron camp recently might get tickets to contest the election. It was learnt that around 120-140 names were sent from different district units for the first two phases. In addition to that, there were hundreds of other names also for consideration.

The party is also likely to field many young faces and professionals from different walks of life in the forthcoming electoral battle, insiders said.