New Delhi/Bhopal: The BJP on Tuesday released its first list of 176 candidates for Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, replacing 34 MLAs, including three ministers.
The party’s central election committee (CEC), which met on Monday, also announced candidates for 28 Assembly seats in Telangana and 24 in Mizoram.
Prominent names in the Madhya Pradesh list include chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan who has been renominated from his Budhni seat.
The three ministers who failed to make it to the list include Maya Singh from Gwalior East, Gaurishankar Shejwar from Sanchi (SC) and Harsh Singh from Rampur Baghelan. However, sons of Mr Shejwar and Mr Singh — Mudit Shejwar and Vikram Singh — have been fielded from their seats. Sitting ministers Narottam Mishra and Yashodhara Raje Scindia will contest from new seats — Datia and Shivpuri — for the November 28 Assembly polls.
Vyapam scam-tainted former minister Laxmikant Sharma doesn’t feature in the list. However, his brother Umakant Sharma has been fielded from Sironj.
Sitting ministers who have got the ticket include Bhupendra Singh, Gopal Bhargava, Jayant Malaiya, Rajendra Shukla, Umashankar Gupta, Vijay Shah, Archana Chitnis, Antar Singh Arya and Paras Jain. Seats of state minister Lalitha Yadav and two sitting MLAs were changed.
The party has also decided to field MPs, Manohar Untwal and Nagendra Singh, from Agar and Nagor Assembly.
Two loyalists of Congress veteran Jyotiraditya Scindia, Bhupendra Dwivedy and K.C. Yadav, who had recently quit their party to join the BJP, have been given tickets from Chanderi and Mungaoli Assembly seats.
In the afternoon, the BJP declared candidates for 177 Assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh. But, later in the evening, the name of candidate for Ghatiya Assembly seat was withdrawn.
It is being speculated that son of Premchand Guddu, a dalit leader from Malwa who switched over from the Congress to the BJP on Friday, may be accommodated in the seat. The BJP also released its second list of candidates for 24 seats in the election to the 40-member Mizoram Assembly on November 28. The party had released its first list of 13 candidates on October 20. The saffron party has so far fielded the largest number of six women candidates.
