The Bharatiya Janata Party announced its initial list of 24 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, showcasing prominent names such as former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia.
Noteworthy changes saw Bhopal MP Pragya Singh Thakur being replaced by Alok Sharma, a former mayor.
The party's announcement, released on Saturday, introduced a total of 195 candidates.
Returning to Lok Sabha polls after nearly two decades, Chouhan is set to contest his sixth Parliamentary election from Vidisha, a prestigious seat previously held by BJP luminaries like late Atal Bihari Vajpayee (in 1991), Sushma Swaraj (in 2009 and 2014) and newspaper publisher Ramnath Goenka (in 1971).
Speculation had been rife regarding Chhindwara, with no candidate announced yet. Amidst talks of Congress stalwarts Kamal Nath and his son switching sides, the Naths earlier this week refuted any such reports.
Notably, the BJP repeated 13 sitting MPs in its list while introducing fresh faces for 11 seats, including Morena, Gwalior, and Sagar.
The BJP's dominance in Madhya Pradesh, having secured 28 out of 29 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, sets the stage for an intriguing electoral battle as the party readies its roster for the upcoming polls.
Notably, sitting MP Pragya Singh Thakur, an accused in Malegaon blast case, was dropped from Bhopal. Thakur, known for her contentious statements, secured victory over Congress stalwart Digvijaya Singh in the 2019 elections by a margin of 3.65 lakh votes.
Candidates for five seats -- Indore, Chhindwara, Balaghat, Ujjain and Dhar -- are yet to be announced.
Shivraj Singh Chouhan led the BJP to victory in the last year's Madhya Pradesh assembly elections, yet was replaced by Mohan Yadav as CM.
Union ministers Faggan Singh Kulaste and Virendra Singh Khatik were fielded from their current constituencies.
The seats where new candidates were announced are Morena, Gwalior, Sagar, Bhopal, Damoh, Sidhi, Jabalpur, Hoshangabad, Ratlam, Vidisha and Guna.
The seats where sitting MPs were given another chance include Bhind (Sandhya Rai), Tikamgarh (Union Minister Virendra Kumar), Khajuraho (state BJP president V D Sharma), Satna (Ganesh Singh), Rewa (Janardan Mishra), Shahdol (Himadri Singh), Mandla (union minister Faggan Singh Kulaste), Rajgarh (Rodmal Nagar), Dewas (Mahendra Singh Solanki), Mandsaur (Sudhir Gupta), Khargone (Gajendra Patel), Khandwa (Gyaneshwar Patil) and Betul (Durgadas Uikey).
In November 2023 assembly elections, the BJP had fielded seven MPs including union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Prahlad Patel.
After winning elections, Tomar, MP from Morena, became Speaker of the assembly, while Patel, parliamentarian from Damoh, became the minister in the state cabinet.
The MPs of Jabalpur (Rakesh Singh), Hoshangabad (Rao Uday Pratap Singh) and Sidhi (Riti Pathak) also won assembly elections, hence, new candidates were fielded from these seats. Rakesh Singh and Rao Uday Pratap Singh are now ministers in the state cabinet.
MPs from Gwalior (Vivek Shejwalkar), Sagar (Rajbahadur Singh), Bhopal (Pragya Singh Thakur), Ratlam (Guman Singh Damor), Vidisha (Ramakant Bhargava) and Guna (KP Singh Yadav) did not figure in the list.
Jyotiraditya Scindia, 53, was fielded from Guna Lok Sabha seat, where he, as a Congress candidate, had faced defeat at the hands of the BJP's K P Singh Yadav in 2019. Scindia had represented this seat four times, and is currently a Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh.
Shivraj Singh Chouhan, 64, represented Vidisha five times before becoming chief minister in November 2005. He is currently MLA from Budhni assembly segment which falls under the Vidisha Lok Sabha seat.
Faggan Singh Kulaste, who won from Niwas assembly seat last year, was fielded from his Mandla Lok Sabha constituency again.
Another union minister, Virendra Kumar Khatik, was again fielded from his Tikamgarh seat.
Ganesh Singh, the sitting MP who faced defeat in the 2023 assembly elections, was fielded again from Satna.
In Ratlam, sitting MP Guman Singh Damor was dropped in favour of woman candidate Anita Nagar Singh Chouhan.
Lata Wankhede was fielded from Sagar Lok Sabha seat in Bundelkhand. There are a total of four women candidates in the list.
Other new candidates include Ashish Dubey from Jabalpur, Darshan Singh Choudhary from Hoshangabad, Shivmangal Singh Tomar from Morena, Bharat Singh Kushwaha from Gwalior, Rajesh Mishra from Sidhi, and Rahul Lodhi from Damoh.
