Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will contest the Lok Sabha election from Vidisha seat in the State, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced on Saturday.
Union Minister and sitting Rajya Sabha MP Jyotiraditya Scindia was fielded from his traditional Guna seat, while State BJP president V. D. Sharma will contest from his Khajuraho constituency.
The BJP released its first list of 195 candidates for the parliamentary elections, including 24 out of 29 seats in M.P. The party is yet to declare its candidates to five seats in the State, including Chhindwara, the only constituency that it had lost in 2019 Lok Sabha election.
The party has dropped sitting Guna MP and a former confidant of Mr. Scindia, K. P. Yadav, who in 2019 had defeated Mr. Scinda, then with the Congress.
In Khajuraho, Mr. Sharma will be challenged by a Samajwadi Party candidate as the Congress has conceded the seat to its INDIA coalition ally as part of their seat-sharing arrangement.
Fresh faces
The BJP’s list of 24 candidates from M.P. has 12 new faces as the party has denied tickets to seven incumbent MPs while five parliamentarians have resigned from their Lok Sabha membership after becoming MLAs in the State Assembly election held in November 2023.
Mr. Chouhan, who has earlier represented Vidisha seat from 1993 to 2004 before he was made the CM in 2005, will now replace Ramakant Bhargava as the BJP’s candidate in the constituency.
After the announcement, Mr. Chouhan thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J. P. Nadda.
He said said that he is a worker in the “national remaking” mission of the BJP and that the party has given him a chance to contribute towards that mission.
“Whatever task the party deems fit, it gives that to its workers. Now, an ordinary worker like me has been given a chance to contribute to the national remaking mission. Under PM Modi ji’s leadership, the commitment of a developed India has to be fulfilled and I will work for it with full determination,” said Mr. Chouhan, speaking to news agency ANI, and added that he had a close connection with Vidisha and has again been given a chance to serve the constituency.
M.P. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav also paid a visit to Mr. Chouhan at the latter’s residence.
Mr. Chouhan was the State’s CM between 2005 and 2023, barring the 15-month period from December 2018 to March 2020 when the Kamal Nath-led Congress government was in power. The BJP had gone to last year’s Assembly election with its collective leadership plank and had not declared Mr. Chouhan as its face for the first time since 2013.
Following its massive victory in the polls, in which it won 163 out of 230 Assembly seats, the party replaced Mr. Chouhan with his former Cabinet colleague Mr. Yadav. There had been an uncertainty ever since about his future role in the party and politics with rumours going around on whether he will be moving to national politics.
Mr. Chouhan will now return to contest from the Vidisha parliamentary seat after about 20 years. He had first won from there in a by-election in 1991 after the former PM, late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who had won from both Vidisha and Lucknow during the 1991 general election, had vacated the Madhya Pradesh seat.
Pragya Singh dropped
The party has also denied ticket to sitting Bhopal MP Pragya Singh Thakur, replacing her with former city mayor Alok Sharma. Mr. Alok Sharma, considered close to Mr. Chouhan, had unsuccessfully contested the latest Assembly polls from Bhopal Uttar (North) seat.
From Morena, a seat earlier represented by former Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, the BJP has fielded Shivmangal Singh Tomar.
Similarly, the BJP has fielded fresh faces — Darshan Singh Choudhary, Ashish Dubey, Rahul Lodhi and Rajesh Mishra — from Hoshangabad, Jabalpur, Damoh and Sidhi, respectively. The seats were earlier represented by State Cabinet Ministers Uday Pratap Singh, Rakesh Singh and Prahlad Singh Patel, and MLA Riti Pathak, respectively.
Mr. Choudhary is the State BJP’s Kisan Morcha president.
The party has, however, retained Union Ministers Virendra Kumar Khatik from Tikamgarh (SC) and Faggan Singh Kulaste from Mandla (ST) seats. Mr. Kulaste was also fielded by the party from Mandla district’s Niwas seat in the Assembly election but had lost the contest.
The party has also reposed its faith in sitting Satna MP Ganesh Singh, who had also lost the recent Assembly elections from Satna Assembly seat.
Apart from Chhindwara, the BJP is yet to name its candidates in Indore, Ujjain, Dhar and Balaghat seats. Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat is currently held by Nakul Nath, son of former M.P. CM and Congress veteran Kamal Nath.
