Rajnath Singh, president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, has predicted two third majority for the Shiromani Akali Dal and Bharatiya Janata Party alliance in the Assembly polls in Punjab for which voting concluded at 5 pm on Tuesday.

Rajnath was speaking to newsmen after flagging off the party rath at the party headquarters in New Delhi. The rath highlights the price rise of essential commodities during the United Progressive Alliance rule.

"We are not just winning, but we may get two third majority in the Punjab polls. We are also doing well in the Uttarakhand elections as well and will form the government there," Rajnath said with a broad smile.

Rajnath has proved lucky for the BJP as the party has been consolidating its position in various states.

Rajnath leaves Delhi on a four-day campaign tour in Uttarakhand on Wednesday.

Rajnath took Manmohan Singh government to task for allowing the prices of essential commodities reach an all-time high.

"We demand that the government should come out with a white paper on the prices. If one man kept the prices of the essential commodities under control during his rule, it was former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayeeji," he said.

In an interesting development, the BJP central election committee met at the party headquarters to clear the names of its candidates for bypolls to the Lok Sabha and Assembly seats.

Notable among the abstentees, included former deputy prime minister Lal Kishenchand Advani, general secretary Arun Jaitley and former party president M Venkaiah Naidu. While Advani waited for weather clearance to take off for a tour of Uttarakhand as it was raining in Dehradun, Jaitley sat sulking at 9 Akbar Road watching the polling in Punjab on TV.

"Committee ke jo jo sadaya jo bhag sakte the woh bhag liyee. ("I mean they participated in the deliberations," he clarified when he was asked who all were present at the central election committee meeting.)

BJP cleared the name of Yashodra Raje Scindia from 3-Gwalior seat, while it nominated Kunwar Singh for 100 Sidhi seat reserved for a Scheduled Tribe candidate.

It named Shashi Prabha, wife of Ram Pal Singh, member of Parliament from Videsha seat, for the 153-Udaypura seat in Madhya Pradesh.