Out of the 39 candidates the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced on Thursday for the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, 14 are those who lost the assembly elections in 2018.
Among the candidates who have been retained by the BJP — are Madhu Verma (Patelabad), Nirmala Bhuria (Kasrawad), Atmaram Patel (Gohad), Lal Singh Arya (Chhatarpur), Lalita Yadav (Pathariya), Lakhna Patle (Ginnor), Rajesh Verma (Chitrakoot), Surendra Singh Gahrwar (Shahpura), Om Praksh Dhurve (Sausar), Nanabhau Mohore (Maheshwar), Dhruvnarayan Singh (Bhopal North) and ex-Bhopal Mayor Alok Sharma (Bhopal East).
The BJP has also fielded former chief minister Uma Bharti’s nephew Preetam Singh Lodhi from Picchor assembly seat. Lodhi had been removed from the BJP due to anti-party activities, but, he was later re-inducted into the party in the presence of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan a couple of months back.
Moreover, the BJP has selected at least three candidates who are the family members of the senior BJP leaders. Sarla Rawat, who has been fielded from Sabalgarh, is daughter in-law of (late) Meharban Singh Rawat. Neeraj Singh Thakur, who would be contesting the election from Patan seat of Jabalpur district, is the son of former BJP MLA Pratibha Singh, while former MLA Manvendra Singh’s son Kamakshya Singh has been fielded from Maharajpur seat in Chhatarpur district.
The BJP has fielded Sarla Vijendra Rawat from Sabalgarh, Priyanka Meena from Chachoura, Surendra Singh Gaharwar from Chitrakoot, Lalita Yadav from Chhatarpur, Anchal Sonkar from Jabalpur Purba (SC), Nirmala Bhuriya from Petlawad, Bhanu Bhuriya from Jhabua (ST), Alok Sharma from Bhopal Uttar and Dhruv Narayan Singh from Bhopal Madhya, among others.
Out of the 39 seats for which candidates were announced on Thursday, 21 assembly constituencies are reserved –13 for ST and eight for SC candidates. The BJP has also fielded as many as five women candidates.
The names of candidates were finalised in a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that concluded late on Wednesday night. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and state BJP President V. D. Sharma along with election in-charge of Madhya Pradesh – Union Ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, Bhupendra Yadav and Ashwini Vaishnaw — were also present in the meeting.
