New Delhi : The Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) on September 21 announced its second list of 40 candidates for the October 13 assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana. The party also finalised the names of candidates for by-election to three seats in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, according to an official statement here.

The candidate selection was done at a meeting of the BJP's central election committee chaired by party president Rajnath Singh. It was attended by L.K. Advani, leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, his counterpart in the upper house Arun Jaitley and others.

The assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh are seen as the first major popularity test for the Congress after the April-May Lok Sabha elections, where the United Progressive Alliance that it heads retained power. The BJP will contest 119 of the 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra, leaving the rest to its alliance partner Shiv Sena.

The party had announced the first list of 66 candidates Saturday, while it declared 20 names each for Maharashtra and Haryana on September 21. The Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance, which has been ruling Maharashtra for the past 10 years, is yet to announce its seat sharing arrangement. However, senior leaders of the two parties maintained that the formal announcement would be made shortly.