BHOPAL: With the BJP naming candidates for 24 Lok Sabha seats of Madhya Pradesh on Saturday evening, suspense now prevails about the five remaining seats, including key Chhindwara, Indore and Ujjain-SC seats.
The Indore seat which has been a BJP citadel since 1989 (ex-LS speaker Sumitra Mahajan won it 8 consecutive times between 1989 and 2014) is particularly in focus. According to BJP insiders, the party’s top brass is brainstorming whether to continue with first-time MP Shankar Lalwani (lone Sindhi community MP) or field a new face, preferably a female candidate.
Party is mulling on host of faces, including current mayor Pushyamitra Bhargava or ex-mayor-cum-current MLA Malini Gaur or field a new female face, where available options, include first time Rajya Sabha member Kavita Patidar, social activist and state BJP spokesperson Dr Divya Gupta, spiritual guru Late Bhaiyyuji Maharaj’s wife Aisi Deshmukh or local leader Mala Thakur.
With the chapter on Kamal Nath and local MP son Nakul Nath’s possible switch to the BJP now nearly over, the BJP is looking to field a strong candidate from Chhindwara, which has been Nath family’s pocket-borough since 1980 and was the lone seat won by the Congress in 2019 polls.
The party is also working at finding a strong candidate from Ujjain-SC seat which covers the entire home district of current MP CM Dr Mohan Yadav, OBC and tribal dominated Balaghat seat and Dhar-ST seat. In the 8 assembly segments-strong Dhar-ST seat, BJP managed to win only three out of the eight segments in the recent assembly polls.
Earlier, on Saturday evening, the BJP named 24 candidates out of the 29-LS seats in the state. While 13 MPs sitting MPs were retained, six others, among them Bhopal MP Pragya Singh Thakur, Guna MP Dr KP Singh Yadav, Sagar MP Rajbahadur Singh, Ratlam-Jhabua MP Guman Singh Damor and Vidisha MP Ramakant Bhargava (all first-time MPs) and Gwalior MP Vivek Shejwalkar were denied tickets.
The list marked the return for four-time former MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan to the LS battlefield after 20 years from his political ‘karmabhoomi’ Vidisha (he won the seat five times in the past), while union minister and RS member Jyotiraditya Scindia was named candidate from Guna seat (represented by him as Congress candidate four times in the past) which he lost to BJP’s Dr KP Singh Yadav in 2019 polls. Also, the third-time sitting MP from Tikamgarh-SC seat and union minister Virendra Kumar was again named the candidate from the same seat of Bundelkhand region, despite opposition by a large section of local party’s rank and file.
The list also included Shivraj Singh Chouhan loyalists, Alok Sharma from Bhopal seat, Darshan Singh Chaudhary (Hoshangabad), sitting MP Rodmal Nagar (Rajgarh) and Anita Nagar Singh Chouhan, who is the Alirajpur district panchayat chairperson wife of Chouhan’s loyalist MP minister Nagar Singh Chouhan. Nath is believed to have played a key role in the party's nod for fourth-time sitting Satna MP Ganesh Singh (who had lost the 2023 assembly polls) and Late Wankhede from Sagar seat.
While Vidhan Sabha speaker and ex-union minister Narendra Singh Tomar wasn’t considered by the party for Gwalior or Morena seats (both seats were won by him in the past), his key loyalists, including sitting MP Sandhya Rai, ex-MLA Shivmangal Singh Tomar and ex-MP minister Bharat Singh Kushwah were named candidates from Bhind-SC, Morena and Gwalior seats respectively.
11 fresh faces, included Ashish Dube (Jabalpur), Dr Rajesh Mishra (Sidhi), Anita Nagar Singh Chouhan (Ratlam-Jhabua ST), Lata Wankhede (Sagar) and Rahul Lodhi (Damoh).
Surprisingly, BJP also put its faith in 2023 assembly poll losers, including sitting Satna MP Ganesh Singh, union minister and sixth time MP Faggan Singh Kulaste from Mandla-ST seat, Bharat Singh Kushwah from Gwalior and Alok Sharma from Bhopal seat.
Meanwhile, voices of dissent within the BJP have started over the ticket distribution. Ex-MP minister Ajay Vishnoi (the second-time MLA from Patan seat) wrote on social media platform X about Ashish Dube, the candidate from Jabalpur LS seat having opposed him in the recent assembly polls.
According to key sources in the opposition Congress’s state unit, the party’s local leadership is keenly eyeing development in Guna constituency, where the BJP has named Jyotiraditya Scindia as the candidate, denying ticket to sitting MP Dr KP Singh Yadav. The constituency spread over three districts has over 3 lakh Yadav caste voters, who are believed to have played key role in Yadav’s upset win over fourth-time sitting Congress MP Jyotiraditya Scindia in the 2019 polls.
