BJP releases first list of candidates for Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh assembly polls

Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday released the first list of candidates for Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh assembly polls scheduled for later this year.

For Madhya Pradesh, the party has announced a list of 39 candidates with five women contestants. For Chhattisgarh, five women candidates were present in the list that included 21 names.

In Chhattisgarh, the BJP has fielded Baghel from Patan, Bhulan Singh Maravi from Premnagar, 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 BJP 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 party's decision to announce the first list of candidates so early underlines the significance it has attached to five state elections, the last round of assembly contest before the all-important Lok Sabha polls. Besides Chhattisgarh and MP, Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram are scheduled to go to polls later this year.

The BJP is in power only in Madhya Pradesh and is running an intense campaign to oust the Congress government in Chhattisgarh.

The BJP in 2018 had won only 15 of the 90 seats in the Chhattisgarh assembly against 68 of the Congress while its tally of seats was 109 against 114 of the Congress in the 230-member Madhya Pradesh assembly.

(With inputs from PTI)