BHOPAL: Two days after Congress, ruling BJP on Thursday morning announced the names of candidates for the upcoming bypolls in Madhya Pradesh.
The party’s central leadership fielded Gyaneshwar Patil, a former district panchayat president as candidate for Khandwa Lok Sabha constituency. State party office-bearers said that he was a close aide of deceased MP Nandkumar Singh Chauhan, who succumbed to Covid-19 related complications in March, necessitating the bypoll.
“Gyaneshwar Patil is a very amiable and approachable person, much like Nandkumar ji. He worked silently for the organisation while Nandu Bhaiyya won the Lok Sabha seat six times,” said BJP spokesman Rajneesh Agarwal.
State BJP was also considering the candidature of Nandkumar’s son Harsh and former minister Archana Chitnis from the parliamentary seat but the party’s central leadership approved the ticket to an active worker who served for decades. Patil will contest against Congress’s former MLA Rajnarayan Purni.
In Raigaon (SC) assembly seat, BJP fielded party’s district general secretary Pratima Bagri, who will be a first-time contender against Congress’s Kalpana Verma.
Congress’s former MLA Sulochana Rawat, who shifted loyalties to BJP last Saturday, has been fielded from Jobat assembly seat. The ST reserved seat is a Congress bastion which BJP managed to win only in 2003 and 2013. BJP denied ticket to its four-time candidate Madho Singh Dawar.
The seat has been vacated after the demise of Congress’s Kalawati Bhuria to Covid earlier this year. Sulochana will fight against Congress’s Mahesh Patel, the party’s district president of Alirajpur, whose wife is also the district panchayat president .
In Prithvipur assembly seat, BJP has fielded a candidate who contested the 2018 assembly elections as a Samajwadi Party candidate. Sishupal Singh Yadav had secured 44,816 votes and was the closest rival of Congress winner Brijendra Singh Rathore who got 52,436 votes. BJP candidate Ajay Singh lagged behind with just about 10,391 votes.
Later Sishupal joined BJP and has been working for the party in the constituency. He will contest against Congress’s Nitendra Singh Rathore, the son of deceased Congress MLA Brijendra Singh Rathore.
