ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Patwa, Joshi, Verma in BJP's first list for MP

The Bharatiya Janata Party today released its first list of 256 candidates for the 320 assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh.

Ninety-five legislators in the present assembly, including former chief ministers Sunderlal Patwa and Kailash Joshi and Leader of the Opposition Vikram Verma, have been nominated again.

The list includes 19 women, 39 candidates from the scheduled castes, 60 from the scheduled tribes, and 56 belonging to the backward classes.

Among the women nominated is Vijayaraje Scindia's daughter Yashodhararaje, who will contest the Shivpuri seat.

The party's central election committee (CEC) decided to drop 18 legislators from the current lot.

The party also decided not to project any candidate for chief ministership in Madhya Pradesh and the proposed state of Chhattisgarh, general secretary M Venkaiah Naidu announced.

Naidu said the party would contest all 320 seats in Madhya Pradesh on its own.

He also said the party would put up a scheduled-caste and a scheduled-tribe candidate in the general constituencies of Shyamgarh and Chandrapur.

The party's CEC also considered the list of candidates for the 200 seats of the Rajasthan assembly. The list, however, will be released late tonight or tomorrow.

A decision was reached on about two-thirds of the seats, Naidu said.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Ramdas Agarwal, state BJP chief Raghubir Singh Kaushal, and state general secretary Om Prakash Mathur also attended the meeting.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report