The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday released its fifth list of 92 candidates for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly election slated to be held on November 17. With this, the party has declared its candidates for 228 of the 230 constituencies in the State; names for two seats — Guna and Vidisha — are yet to be finalised.
The announcement comes after the BJP’s central election committee met on Friday night to discuss the candidates. Chaired by the party’s national president, the meeting was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and State BJP chief V.D. Sharma, among others.
The party had earlier declared candidates for 136 constituencies, with its first list of 39 candidates out as early as August 17. The contest between the BJP and the Congress is now clear in 227 seats, as the Congress has also announced candidates.
Two seats left
A BJP leader said that discussions on names for the Guna and Vidisha seats were still ongoing. Mr. Chouhan, who was an MP from Vidisha between 1991 and 2005, has a direct stake in Assembly seats within that Parliamentary constituency, he said.
Unlike in its previous lists, the party has not named any MPs or national leaders as candidates. In earlier lists, the party had sprung a surprise by fielding three Union Ministers — Narendra Singh Tomar, Prahlad Singh Patel, and Faggan Singh Kulaste — as well as four MPs, and one national general secretary, Kailash Vijayvargiya.
Sitting MLAs replaced
The BJP has denied tickets to 29 sitting MLAs, including three sitting Ministers, in the fresh list.
While Mr. Kailash Vijayvargiya was fielded from the Indore-1 constituency, his son and sitting MLA from Indore-3, Akash Vijayvargiya, did not feature in the fresh list. Instead, the party has fielded Rakesh Golu Shukla from that seat. In 2020, Mr. Akash Vijayvargiya had been accused of assaulting a municipal official with a cricket bat in Indore. The BJP had then issued him a show cause notice.
After the latest list came out, Mr. Kailash Vijayvargiya congratulated all the party candidates. “We have to form the government with a two-third majority and finish all the pending works for the welfare of the poor to make M.P. a developed State. All BJP workers should now get to work,” he said in a video message.
Replacing M.P. Minister Yashodhara Raje Scindia, who announced that she would not contest the polls this time, the BJP has fielded Devendra Kumar Jain from the Shivpuri seat. The announcement also put to rest the speculation that Ms. Raje’s nephew and Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia could be fielded from either Shivpuri or his own turf at Gwalior.
Days after jumping from the Congress to the BJP, Siddharth Tiwari has been fielded from Teonthar in the Vindhya region. Mr. Tiwari is the grandson of Congress heavyweight and former Assembly speaker, the late Shriniwas Tiwari, and his family is said to have a strong hold in the region.
‘Will create victory record’
Mr. Chouhan congratulated the candidates and expressed his confidence in them. “All of you should enter the field with full energy and confidence and register victory and give a new impetus to the development of Madhya Pradesh. I have full confidence that all of you will emerge victorious and take BJP’s public welfare schemes to the masses and we will create a new record of victory,” the Chief Minister wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
The State party chief, Mr. Sharma, said that the BJP had so far fielded 28 women candidates and also given prominence to youth, with its youngest candidate being 26-year-old tribal leader Shivram Kannoj from the Dhar district’s Manawar seat.
State Congress president and CM candidate Kamal Nath took potshots at the BJP’s candidate selection, saying that the party has only declared names to blame its defeat on them.
“The fifth list of BJP has made it clear that apart from being leaderless, it has also become directionless. The party has not fielded candidates, but has put forward some old and new names to blame the defeat. Now BJP neither has the face of the Chief Minister nor the face of the MLAs,” Mr. Nath said on X.
Violent protest
After the list was released, several upset BJP workers and supporters of leaders who failed to secure a ticket protested in Jabalpur, in front of Union Minister Bhupender Yadav, the party’s in-charge for M.P. polls.
Videos that surfaced online show some men even pushing and trying to charge at Mr. Yadav even, as his security personnel try to keep them away. Some men also beat up a security person, only stepping back after he tried to draw his gun.
The protestors were said to be supporters of party leader Sharad Jain, who was denied a ticket from the Jabalpur-North seat, as the party fielded Abhilash Pandey instead.
