BHOPAL: Two and half months after he stepped down as BJP’s longest-serving chief minister in the country to make way for Mohan Yadav as the new Madhya Pradesh CM, the 64-year-old Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been named the ruling party’s candidate from Vidisha Lok Sabha seat of the central Indian state.
This will mark Chouhan’s electoral return to his political karmabhoomi Vidisha LS seat that he won five consecutive times between 1991 and 2004 before being made the MP CM in 2005. The eight assembly segments-strong Vidisha LS seat of central MP also houses Chouhan’s home seat Budhni, which he has won six times, including in the 2023 assembly polls.
Vidisha is considered one of BJP’s impregnable fortresses in the country and was won by ex-PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1991 and former Union minister Sushma Swaraj in 2009 and 2014.
“I thank my party’s central leadership for choosing me to serve Vidisha again. I’ve worked for Vidisha’s development and welfare in the past and already have the roadmap ready for its all-round development. I’m confident of winning the seat again,” Chouhan said in Bhopal on Saturday evening.
But it’s not just the 64-year-old former MP CM, who figures in the 24-strong BJP list of candidates for MP released on Saturday evening.
At least three of his loyalists, including former Bhopal mayor Alok Sharma (who lost from Bhopal Uttar assembly seat in the 2023 state elections), state party’s Kisan Morcha head Darshan Singh Chaudhary and second-time sitting MP Rodmal Nagar have been named candidates from central MP’s Bhopal, Hoshangabad and Rajgarh seats respectively.
Anita Nagar Singh Chouhan, who is the wife of the ex-CM’s loyalist Nagar Singh Chouhan, has been named candidate from the Ratlam-Jhabua ST seat, despite the new BJP led by PM Narendra Modi being strongly against dynastic politics.
Among the other prominent candidates, Jyotiraditya Scindia has been named the candidate from the Guna LS seat, which he won four times between 2002 and 2014. The seat which has long been considered the bastion of Gwalior’s erstwhile Scindia royal family (it was won by Scindia’s grandmother Vijaya Raje Scindia six times and father Madhavrao Scindia four times in the past) saw an upset in 2019 when Jyotiraditya Scindia as sitting Congress MP was defeated by his ex-protégé and BJP candidate Dr KP Singh Yadav by over 1.25 lakh votes. The first-time sitting BJP MP has been denied the ticket despite over 3 lakh voters in the constituency being from the Yadav caste.
Also, while Vidhan Sabha Speaker and former union minister Narendra Singh Tomar hasn’t been considered for the Gwalior seat, his loyalist and ex-MP minister Bharat Singh Kushwah (who lost 2023 assembly polls from Gwalior Rural seat) has been named candidate from Gwalior seat. Tomar’s two other loyalists – sitting MP Sandhya Rai and ex-MLA Shivmangal Singh Tomar have been named candidates from the Gwalior-Chambal region’s Bhind-SC and Morena seats respectively.
Six sitting MPs, including Pragya Singh Thakur (Bhopal), Dr KP Singh Yadav (Guna), Raj Bahadur Singh (Sagar), Vivek Shejwalkar (Gwalior), Guman Singh Damor (Ratlam-Jhabua ST) and Ramakant Bhargava (Vidisha) have been denied tickets.
The 13 sitting MPs who have been fielded again from their seats, include union minister and third-time sitting MP Virendra Kumar has been repeated from Tikamgarh-SC seat, state BJP chief VD Sharma from Khajuraho, Himadri Singh from Shahdol-ST, fourth-time MP Ganesh Singh from Satna (despite losing the assembly polls from Satna assembly segment), union minister and sixth-time MP Faggan Singh Kulaste from Mandla-ST (despite being a loser in recent assembly polls), second-time MP Sudhir Gupta from Mandsaur, first-time MP Gyaneshwar Patil from Khandwa-Burhanpur, first-time MP Gajendra Patel from Khargone-ST. Also, second-time MP Janardan Mishra has been named candidate again from Rewa seat, first-time MPs DD Uike and Mahendra Singh Solanki from Betul-ST and Dewas-SC seats respectively and second-time MP Rodmal Nagar from Rajgarh seat.
Eleven new faces, including MP minister Nagar Singh Chouhan’s wife Anita Nagar Singh Chouhan (Ratlam-Jhabua ST), Ashish Dube (Jabalpur), Lata Wankhede (Sagar), Rahul Lodhi (Damoh), Dr Rajesh Mishra (Sidhi), Bharat Singh Kushwah (Gwalior), Shivmangal Singh Tomar (Morena) and Alok Sharma (Bhopal), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Vidisha), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna) and Darshan Singh Chaudhary (Hoshangabad) have found the party’s favour.
The 24 candidates include 9 from the OBC segment, five Brahmins, one Kshatriya, three from scheduled caste and five from scheduled tribe (all reserved seats). Four women candidates, including sitting MPs Sandhya Rai and Himadri Singh and new faces Anita Nagar Singh Chouhan and Lata Wankhede.
