BHOPAL: After days of suspense over who will be the BJP candidate for the mayoral polls from Gwalior, the party finally on Wednesday evening named Suman Sharma as its candidate for the election scheduled to happen next month.
Suman Sharma was the candidate favoured by the camp of Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar. The one led by Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia was backing ex-mayor Samiksha Gupta. The decision came three days before the last date of filing nomination papers.
The Gwalior mayor’s post is reserved for a woman from the general category. Sharma is the daughter-in-law of the two-time former BJP MLA from Gwalior Assembly seat and ex-mayor, Dharam Veer Sharma. She has earlier been the Gwalior district BJP Mahila Morcha chief and the state general secretary of the same wing.
Sharma will take on Congress candidate Shobha Sikarwar, a two-time municipal councilor and wife of Gwalior East Congress MLA Satish Sikarwar. The long wait for the announcement happened apparently due to a lack of consensus on a common candidate between the Tomar and Scindia camps.
The Tomar camp was also batting for BJP Mahila Morcha leader Khushboo Gupta. Former MP minister and party veteran Maya Singh, who is related to the Scindia family, couldn’t get the party’s nod. The 71-year-old was herself not very keen to contest the polls. Polls to elect mayors in 15 cities of MP will be held in two phases on July 6 and July 13.
Kin in the fray
While BJP has largely fielded its and RSS workers, it has put up outgoing mayor Madhuri Patel from Burhanpur, despite opposition by cadre. Her husband Atul Patel is former mayor, and the cadres feel the post has got one family’s hold. In Khandwa, BJP has fielded Amrita Yadav, daughter-in-law of ex-MLA Hukum Chand Yadav and wife of outgoing Municipal Corp. head Amar Yadav