BHOPAL: The Congress on Tuesday announced its second list of 43 candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, fielding Kamal Nath's son Nakul Nath once again from Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara and Ashok Gehlot's son Vaibhav from Rajasthan's Jalore.
Nakul was the lone Congress winner in the 2019 elections from the 29 Lok Sabha seats-strong Madhya Pradesh. The Chhindwara seat has been won nine times by his father, once by his mother and once by him.
Three sitting MLAs – Phool Singh Baraiya, Siddharth Kushwah and Omkar Singh Markam – have been fielded from Bhind-SC, Satna and Mandla-ST seats respectively.
Also, the CWC member Kamleshwar Patel who lost the 2023 assembly polls from his family’s pocket-borough Sihawal seat, has been fielded now from the Sidhi Lok Sabha seat.
Two of these candidates – Kamleshwar Patel and Omkar Singh Markam – were cabinet ministers in the 15-month Congress regime led by Kamal Nath in MP between December 2018 and March 2020.
The fourth-time sitting MLA from Dindori-ST seat Markam will take on sixth-time sitting BJP MP and union minister Faggan Singh Kulaste from Mandla-ST. Kulaste had suffered a shocking defeat from his home seat Niwas-ST in the 2023 assembly polls.
Ramu Tekam, who had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls unsuccessfully has been named candidate again from Betul-ST seat.
Rajendra Malviya who lost the 2013 assembly polls by 16,000-plus votes from the Tarana-SC assembly segment of Ujjain district has been fielded from Dewas-SC Lok Sabha seat.
The three new faces who have made it to the Congress’s first list, include ex-commercial tax department officer Porlal Kharte (he had taken voluntary retirement from state government service eyeing Congress ticket from Sendhwa-ST seat of Barwani district in 2023) who has been fielded from Khargone-ST seat.
Pankaj Ahirwar will be contesting against BJP veteran and union minister Virendra Kumar from the Tikamgarh-SC seat (Kumar is seventh-time sitting MP) and Radheyshyam Muwel will contest from the Dhar-ST seat.
With the Congress naming its state OBC cell head and second-time sitting MLA from Satna seat Siddharth Kushwah as the candidate from Satna Lok Sabhaseat, the seat is set to witness the repeat of the 2023 assembly polls contest from Satna assembly seat between Kushwah and fourth-time sitting BJP MP Ganesh Singh.
In the 2023 assembly polls, Siddharth Kushwah had retained the Satna assembly seat (it is one of the seven assembly seats forming Satna LS seat) by defeating the fourth-time sitting BJP MP Ganesh Singh by just 4000-plus votes in a contest, where BJP rebel Ratnakar Chaturvedi polled 33,500-plus votes.
Importantly, Kushwah’s father Sukhlal Kushwah had won the Satna Lok Sabha seat way back in 1996 as a BSP candidate, defeating two ex-CMs – Virendra Kumar Sakhlecha (BJP) and Arjun Singh (Congress). Out of the ten seats on which candidates were declared by the Congress on Tuesday evening, only three are unreserved seats. On these seats, Congress has named two OBC candidates (Siddharth Kushwah and Kamleshwar Patel) and Nakul Nath from general category.
Importantly, no women has been named by the Congress on any of the ten seats, contrary to the BJP which had named 4 women in its first list of 24 candidates.
The Congress will contest 28 out of the 29 LS seats in MP, leaving the Khajuraho seat for its ally Samajwadi Party. While the Congress had named candidates for 10 out of the 28 seats it will contest, the BJP has already named candidates on 24 seats.
In 2019 LS polls, the BJP had virtually swept the elections winning 28 out of the 29 seats from MP, while Congress could only retain its Chhindwara seat.
