A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership discussed its strategy for the constituencies in poll-bound states of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, the saffron party on Thursday named its candidates for 39 seats in Madhya Pradesh and 21 in Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh.
While Chhattisgarh has 90 seats, Madhya Pradesh comprises 230 seats. The BJP’s decision to name its candidates in these relatively weak seats so much in advance underscores its intent to get the better of the Congress in the two states, more so following the opposition party’s massive win in southern state Karnataka in May, where it bagged 135 seats in the 224-member Assembly.
In its first list of candidates for Chhattisgarh, the BJP has fielded five women, 10 candidates from Scheduled Tribes (STs) and one from the Scheduled Castes (SC) category.
The party has fielded Vijay Baghel, its Durg MP, from Patan which is currently represented by Chhattisgarh Chief Minister and Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel. BJP’s national SC Morcha chief Lal Singh Arya is its candidate from Gohad in Madhya Pradesh.
From the Premnagar seat, Bhulan Singh Maravi will be contesting, Laxmi Rajwade from Bhatgaon, Shakuntala Singh Porthe from Pratappur (ST), Sarla Kosaria from Saraipali (SC), Alka Chandrakar from Khallari, Gita Ghasi Sahu from Khujji and Maniram Kashyap from Bastar (ST), among others.
In Madhya Pradesh, the party has fielded five women candidates, 8 SCs, and 13 from STs.
The party has fielded Sarla Vijendra Rawat from Sabalgarh, Priyanka Meena from Chachaoura, Lalita Yadav from Chhatarpur, Anchal Sonkar from Jabalpur Purba (SC), Nirmala Bhuriya from Petlawad, Bhanu Bhuriya from Jhabua (ST), Alok Sharma from Bhopal Uttar and Dhruv Narayan Singh from Bhopal Madhya, among others.
The names of the candidates were decided at the BJP’s Central Election Committee meeting on Wednesday which was chaired by party chief J P Nadda and attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah among other senior leaders.
In the 2018 elections, the BJP was defeated in both states. However, it toppled the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh led by Kamal Nath after just over a year, following which BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan took oath as the 32nd CM of the state.
The BJP had won 15 of the 90 seats in the Chhattisgarh Assembly while the Congress bagged 68. The BJP’s tally was 109 in the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly while the Congress stood at 114.
Besides Chhattisgarh and MP, Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram are scheduled to go to polls later this year.