Jaipur, November 12: In a major setback for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Rajasthan, five-time MLA and Cabinet Minister Surendra Goyal resigned from the primary membership of the party ahead of the upcoming assembly elections in the state. Goyal resigned from the party hours after the BJP released its first list of 131 candidates for the elections. He was MLA from Jaitaran. He was elected to the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 14th legislative assembly of the state. Rajasthan Assembly Elections 2018 Full Schedule And Dates: Single-Phase Voting on December 7, Results on December 11

According to reports, the five-time MLA was unhappy as the party didn’t give him a ticket from Jaitaran. Instead, Avinash Gehlot will be contesting elections from the constituency. The party this time introduced 25 new faces in the list. Union Minister JP Nadda on Sunday announced the list for the upcoming polls in the state that are due in December. Out of the 131 candidates, 12 are female candidates, 32 are young candidates, 17 are from SC category and 19 candidates from ST category. Nadda said that there are 85 sitting MLAs and 25 new faces in the list.

Polling across 200 seats in the state will be held in a single phase on December 7. The counting of votes will be done on December 11. The process for filing nomination papers for the Rajasthan assembly election has begun from today. The last date of filing nomination is November 19. Apart from Rajasthan, four other states – Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Mizoram are undergoing polls this year.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 12, 2018 07:39 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).