Congress announces all but one candidates for Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls

Discontent over ticket distribution delays Rajasthan list

With the list of 88 candidates released late Thursday night, the Congress has announced 229 candidates for the 230-seat Madhya Pradesh Assembly. The party has denied tickets to five sitting legislators, fielded 99 who are below 50 years of age, and accommodated five Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) turncoats, including former chief minister Kailash Joshi’s son Deepak Joshi.

The state goes to polls on November 17.

The BJP, which was first off the blocks to release its list of 39 candidates for Madhya Pradesh, more than a month and a half before the poll schedule was announced, is yet to announce 94 names in a state where it faces an 18-year-long anti-incumbency. The party has fielded seven Lok Sabha MPs, including three Union ministers.

The Congress is yet to release the name of its candidate for Amla constituency in Betul, where it wants bureaucrat Nisha Bangre to contest.  Bangre is awaiting the High Court’s decision as the state government is yet to accept her resignation from her service.

The Congress has denied tickets to six sitting legislators. However, in Bhopal, it has fielded Atif Akil, son of ailing sitting legislator Arif Aqueel.

The party also changed candidates announced on three seats — Pichhore, Datia, and Gotegaon. In Datia, it changed its candidate, Awadhesh Nayak, who had recently quit the BJP to join the Congress, against BJP leader and state home minister Narottam Mishra. The Congress has fielded Rajendra Bharati. In Gotegaon, the Congress restored the party's candidature to former Assembly speaker N P Prajapati after initially denying him the ticket.

The Congress has fielded Rajendra Singh Tomar against Union agriculture minister and BJP’s Dimni candidate Narendra Singh Tomar. Congress sources said the party fielded 30 women, or 13 per cent of the total seats, 62 from Other Backward Classes (OBCs), 34 Scheduled Castes and 48 Scheduled Tribes. Four Jay Adivasi Yuva Shakti Sangathan members will contest on Congress tickets, including its chief and sitting legislator from Manawar, Hiralal Alawa.

Rajasthan conundrum

The Congress is yet to announce any candidates for the Rajasthan Assembly polls amid reports of friction between camps within the party and the central leadership objecting to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s push to field all his sitting ministers and loyalists. They include Shanti Kumar Dhariwal and Mahesh Joshi, whom the party's central leadership had show-caused last year.

The BJP announced 41 of the 200 candidates for Rajasthan on October 9. Sources said discontent within the party because of the denial of tickets to sitting legislators considered close to former CM Vasundhara Raje, and other reasons, delayed declaring the rest of the candidates. Rajasthan votes on November 25.

The BJP and Congress have announced nearly all their candidates for the Chhattisgarh Assembly polls on November 7 and 17.