BHOPAL: Eyeing their fourth successive term in power in Madhya Pradesh, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday declared candidates on all 230 seats for the Assembly polls. Just a few hours after releasing the third list of 32 candidates, the ruling party released its final list of seven more candidates.In the final list, the BJP denied tickets to three sitting MLAs, among them, 75-year-old cabinet minister Kusum Mehdele.
Mehdele, a four-time MLA from the Panna seat, is the fifth minister of the incumbent Shivraj Singh Chouhan government to have been denied a ticket for the upcoming polls. In total, the ruling party has denied tickets to 52 sitting MLAs, which translates to over 30% of the 165 seats the party won in 2013 polls.
Besides, Mehdele, the other ministers, who have been so far denied party tickets, include Maya Singh (Gwalior East), Harsh Singh (Rampur Baghelan), Suryaprakash Meena (Shamsabad) and Gaurishankar Shejwar (Sanchi).Akash Vijayvargiya, the son of BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya has been fielded from Indore III seat.
The saffron party has already given tickets to other politician sons. They include Mudit, son of MP cabinet minister Gaurishankar Shejwar and Vikram Singh, the son of MP minister Harsh Singh, among others.
The party also named Krishna Gaur, daughter-in-law of former CM Babulal Gaur and former mayor of Bhopal, from the Govindpura seat. Babulal has won from the seat eight times in a row and it is considered one of the safest seats for the BJP in the state.