BJP’s MP Poll Calculation: A Test of Seasoned Leaders?

The BJP on Monday fielded Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, Prahlad Singh Patel Phaggan Singh Kulaste, and several other party MPs for the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls as it released its second list of 39 candidates.

By fielding several Union ministers and MPs, the party has raised the stakes for the assembly polls and underscored its determined bid to retain power in the state amid a strong challenge from the Congress.

Most of them have been winning their Lok Sabha seats for multiple terms.

With the second list, the BJP has named its candidates in 78 seats for the election to the 230-member assembly, likely to be held in November-December. It had released its first list of 39 candidates last month.

The BJP's Strategy

Narendra Singh Tomar

Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar has been fielded from Dimani constituency, which is considered as a weak seat for the BJP. Congress had won the seat in 2018 as well as 2020 by-polls.

Tomar is now contesting state elections after two decades. He was recently appointed the state campaign chief by the BJP. It is believed that he will be considered for the CM race if the BJP comes to power in the state again.

Kailash Vijayvargiya for Indore-1

Considered as one of the influential leaders in the Malwa-Nimar region, Kailash Vijayvargiya, the national general secretary of the BJP, is known for organisational skills. He had earlier been an MLA from different assemblies of Indore after starting his career in Assembly 4. He is a six-time legislator who has never lost an assembly election, and a state government cabinet minister for over 12 years before being elevated to the party's central leadership.

In 2018, Congress candidate Sanjay Shukla had won the seat.

Faggan Singh Kulaste from Niwas

Faggan Singh Kulaste is the Minister of State for Rural Development and Steel of India.

He represented the Mandla Lok Sabha constituency from 1996 to 2009. He has previously been a member of the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 16th and 17th Lok Sabha. He was defeated by the Congress candidate Basori Singh Masram in 2009. He was then elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2019. He regained the seat in 2014.

In 2018, the Niwas seat was won by Congress' Dr Ashok Marskole.

Prahlad Patel from Narsinghpur

Prahlad Patel, whose brother Jalam Singh Patel, is the Minister of State for Food Processing Industries and Jal Shakti was in the news for prematurely tweeting the cabinet decision on the women's reservation Bill and then deleting it. He has been fielded from a seat where the BJP won both in 2013 and 2018 polls. The Congress won the seat in 2008.

The BJP has also fielded Rakesh Singh from Jabalpur (West), Riti Pathak from Sidhi, Ganesh Singh from Satna and Udaypratap Singh from Gadarwara.

Pathak has been named in place of MLA Kedarnath Shukla, whose alleged supporter was named in the Sidhi case in which a tribal was urinated upon, the incident causing outrage across the nation.

Other candidates in the list include Durgalal Vijay (Sheopur), Raghuraj Kansana (Morena), Amrish Sharma (Lahar), Mohan Singh Rathore (Bhitarwar), Imarti Devi (Dabra), Pradeep Agrawal (Sewda) and Ramesh Khatik (Karera).

It has named Hirendra Singh (Raghogarh), Brijbihari Pateria (Deori), Arvind Pateria (Rajnagar), Shrikant Chaturvedi (Maihar), Vishwamitra Pathak (Sihawal), Dilip Jaiswal Kotma and Pankaj Tekam (Dindori).

The party has fielded Gaurav Pardhi from Katangi, Natthan Shah from Junnardev, Vivek Banti Sahu from Chhindwara, Jyoti Deharia from Parasia, Gangabai Uikey from Ghoradongri, Narendra Shivaji Patel from Udaipura, Hajarilal Dangi from Khilchipur, and Madhu Gehlot from Agar.

Arun Bhimawat will fight from Shajapur, Nanda Brahmane from Bhikangaon, Antar Singh Patel from Rajpur, Shyam Barde from Pansemal, Kalsingh Bhanwar from Thandla, Sardar Singh Medha from Gandhwani, Manoj Patel from Depalpur, Tejbahadur Singh from Nagda-Khachrod and Sangeeta Charel from Sailana, as per the BJP.

Malhar MLA Narayan Tripathi has been replaced by Shrikant Chaturvedi.

What about Shivraj Singh Chouhan?

Many are wondering why the party's longest-serving chief minister's name has not been announced for his constituency in even the second list of candidates.

In fact, former Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath mocked the BJP that it has accepted the defeat. "The list of BJP candidates denying the claims of 18.5 years of BJP government and more than 15 years of Shivraji development is a sure seal of internal defeat of BJP which claims to be a party of crores of workers," he posted on X (formerly Twitter) in Hindi.