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Three Cabinet ministers, four members of Parliament, and a national general secretary made it to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP's) second list of 39 candidates for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, in what is seemingly a move to counter the anti-incumbency against the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.
Union Ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, Prahlad Patel, and Faggan Singh Kulaste are among the high-profile leaders set to contest the upcoming polls along with MPs Rakesh Singh, Ganesh Singh, Reeti Pathak, and Uday Pratap Singh as well as national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya.
They said that the party is concerned about the "political weariness" surrounding Chouhan who, notably, has not been named as the face for the chief minister's post.
It's not an unfounded observation then that during his address in Madhya Pradesh on Monday, 25 September, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke about the Women's Reservation Bill, accused the Congress of destroying the state, and warned women and first-time voters of not falling for the Congress' promises, among others. But not once did PM Modi mention the incumbent chief minister and his ambitious 'Ladli Behna Yojana'.
A senior party leader told The Quint that the heavyweights have been called in to portray the fact that the chief ministerial berth is wide open for others – a strategic move to counter the anti-incumbency against Chouhan.
Expressing surprise that he had received a ticket to contest the polls, the BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya said on Monday, "I was told that I will be assigned some work and that... I would have to do it. When the tickets were declared, I too was surprised. I am the party's soldier. I will do whatever they say."
Echoing the same, political commentator Dinesh Gupta added that the party might field even more heavyweights to nullify the anti-incumbency factor.
The BJP has fielded Narendra Singh Tomar, who hails from Morena, to contest from the Dimani seat of Morena
Satna MP Ganesh Singh to contest from Satna
Union Minister Faggan Singh Kulaste to contest from Mandla's Niwas
Jabalpur MP Rakesh Singh to contest from Jabalpur Paschim Assembly seat
Prahlad Patel has been given the ticket in place of his brother Jalam Singh Patel, whose name was announced in the first list, to contest from Narsinghpur
Reeti Pathak has been fielded from Sidhi
Uday Pratap Singh will contest from Gadarwara
Kailash Vijayvargiya will contest from Indore-1 Assembly seat
While the Congress, led by Kamal Nath, has been putting up a tough fight against the BJP on various fronts, including on the Hindutva narrative and freebies issue, sources within the party expressed surprise at the BJP fielding seven MPs for state elections.
On Tuesday, Kamal Nath took to X (formerly Twitter) to slam BJP’s second list.
In a post, he said, “The candidates’ list of the BJP, which claims to have crores of party workers, is surely a stamp on the party’s internal defeat and refutes the claims of development during the eighteen-and-a-half years of BJP government and more than 15 years of Shivraj’s (Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan) rule.”
Senior political journalists opine that the BJP is going into the elections with everything that it has got, even with some extra firepower. But how much of that firepower will actually make a difference is a little doubtful.
In the list that created a stir in the state's political circles, the BJP has also attempted to ensure a diverse caste representation.
While Reeti Pathak hails from the Brahmin community, a deciding factor in the Vindhya region, Narendra Singh Tomar, Rakesh Singh, and Uday Pratap Singh belong to the Rajput community
Faggan Singh Kulaste represents the tribal community; Prahlad Patel (Lodhi) and Ganesh Singh (Kurmi) are from Other Backward Classes (OBCs)
Notably, Reeti Pathak is replacing the controversial BJP MLA Kedarnath Shukla from the Brahmin community, whose aide was caught on camera urinating on a tribal man a few months ago.
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