Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will contest from his traditional Budhni seat, while his cabinet colleague Narottam Mishra will be in the fray from Datia as the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday released a fourth list of 57 candidates -- all sitting MLAs -- for the next month's assembly elections.
The list, which has names of 24 state ministers, was released hours after the Election Commission announced assembly poll dates for Madhya Pradesh and four other states. Polling for Madhya Pradesh's 230-member assembly will be held in a single phase on November 17 while the counting of votes will take place on December 3.
With this, the ruling BJP has so far declared candidates for 136 seats. Earlier, the BJP had announced 79 candidates, including two lists of 39 each, and another list of one nominee.
All those figuring in the fourth list are sitting legislators, including ministers.
Besides Chouhan from Budhni in Sehore district, the BJP has fielded assembly speaker Girish Gautam from Deotalab in Rewa district.
The BJP has given poll tickets to 24 state ministers, including home minister Mishra (Datia), Arvind Singh Bhadoria (Ater), Vishvas Sarang (Narela, Bhopal), Prayuman Singh Tomar (Gwalior), Bharat Singh Kushwah (Gwalior Rural), Bhupendra Singh (Khurai), Kamal Patel (Harda), Govind Singh Rajput (Surkhi), Gopal Bhargava (Rehli), Rahul Singh Lodhi (Khargapur), Brajendra Pratap Singh (Panna), Rajendra Shukla (Rewa), Bisahulal Singh (Anuppur), Meena Singh (Manpur), Prabhuram Choudhary (Sanchi), Vijay Shah (Harsud), Prem Singh Patel (Barwani), Rajvardhan Singh (Badnawar), Tulsiram Silawat (Sanver), Mohan Yadav (Ujjain South), Jagdish Devda (Malhargarh), Hardeep Singh Dang (Suwasara), Ramkishore Kaware (Paraswada) and Om Prakash Saklecha (Jawad).
From Bhopal district, the party has renominated its candidates, including Rameshwar Sharma (Huzur), Krishna Gour (Govindpura) and Vishnu Khatri (Berasia).
Other candidates in the liist include Pradeep Laria (Naryaoli), Shailendra Jain (Sagar), Padhuman Singh Lodhi (Malhara), Vikram Singh (Rampur Baghelan), Divyaraj Singh (Sirmour), Pradeep Patel (Mauganj), Shardendu Tiwari (Churhat), Manisha Singh (Jaisinghnagar), Jaisingh Maravi (Jaitpur), Sanjay Satyendra Pathak (Vijayraghavgarh), Sandip Jaiswal (Murwara), Ajay Vishnoi (Patan), Ashok Rohani (Jabalpur Cantonment), Sushil Kumar Tiwari (Panagar), Dinesh Munmun Rai (Seoni), Yogesh Pandagre (Amla), Vijaypal Singh (Sohagpur), Rampal Singh (Silwani), Umakant Sharma (Sironj) Karan Singh Verma (Ichhawar), Gayatriraje Pawar (Dewas), Manoj Chaudhary (Hatpipliya), Ashish Govind Sharma (Khategaon), Ramesh Mendola (Indore-2), Malini Laxman Singh Gaud (Indore-4), Chetanya Kumar Kashyap (Ratlam City) and Yashpal Singh Sisodia (Mandsaur).
In the second list announced late last month, the saffron party had fielded seven Lok Sabha MPs, including Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar (candidate from Dimni), Prahlad Patel (Narasingpur), Faggan Singh Kulaste (Niwas -- an ST reserved seat) as well as BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya (Indore-1).
The BJP seat tally had reduced to 109 in the 2018 assembly polls from 165 in 2013. On the other hand, the Congress won 114 seats in the 230-member House and formed a coalition government under its veteran leader Kamal Nath with the support of Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and independent MLAs.
The Nath government, however, collapsed after 15 months when a section of Congress MLAs, most of them loyal to Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, quit the party and joined the BJP.
The saffron party returned to power in March 2020 with Shivraj Singh Chouhan taking over as chief minister for a record fourth term.
