Million-dollar question: Who will be Congress' CM candidate in MP?

Million dollar question

As campaigning for poll-bound Madhya Pradesh gathers momentum, the million dollar question being asked in many quarters is, if the Congress were to win, who will become chief minister. The Congress has not announced its chief ministerial candidate yet and there are at least two strong contenders for the coveted post. There is state Congress president Kamal Nath and election campaign committee chairperson Jyotiraditya Scindia. Kamal Nath, 71, is the longest serving Lok Sabha MP, having won nine elections. Scindia is just 47 years old and is close to party president Rahul Gandhi. The joke in the party is that the person who has been taking care of election-related spending in the state would be the obvious choice. And if that is true, then Scindia might not be in the race because he is known to be parsimonious and "spending" is not really his forte.

Lucky charm

The returning officer at the Narela assembly seat in Bhopal was on the horns of a trilemma. Three candidates contesting from the seat had been asking for the same election symbol: an auto rickshaw. One of these candidates is contesting with a Savarn Samaj Party ticket while the other two are independents. The officer tried to convince them to choose other symbols but none of them was willing to budge, claiming the auto rickshaw was a lucky charm. As a last resort, lots were drawn and one of the independent candidates proved lucky. 

Tiwari mocked 

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Lok Sabha member Manoj Tiwari was campaigning in poll-bound Chhattisgarh on Thursday. He was scheduled to address a couple of rallies in Nawagarh, which will go to polls on January 20. In the afternoon, an upset Tiwari uploaded a video on social media complaining he had to wait at the Raipur airport because the district administration hadn't given him permission to land. A little later, Tiwari tweeted that the Nawagarh administration had finally permitted him to land, and alleged a Congress conspiracy behind the episode. Tiwari was ridiculed on social media with users pointing out that both the Centre and Chhattisgarh were ruled by the BJP. But it seemed the party still believed it was in 

the Opposition.