RAIPUR: On Monday, BJP vice-president and former chief minister Raman Singh filed his nomination papers amid huge fanfare to contest the Rajnandgaon assembly seat in the next month’s assembly elections.
Singh is one of six candidates who have filed their papers so far to contest from the 20 assembly constituencies going to the polls in the first phase of elections.
Accompanied by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who flew in earlier that morning, and state party leaders, Singh filed his papers to seek re-election from Rajnandgaon. Senior leader Amit Shah was also present when three other BJP candidates filed their nomination papers to contest for assembly segments in Rajnandgaon district.
Singh, a three-time chief minister from 2003 to 2018, is a six-time MLA who was elected to the state assembly for the first time during undivided Madhya Pradesh. The ruling Congress has fielded OBC leader Girish Dewangan, chairman of the state mineral development corporation, to take on the BJP’s popular leader on the latter’s home turf.
In the 2018 elections, the Congress had fielded Karuna Shukla, former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s niece who had joined the grand old party after quitting the BJP. However, Singh defeated her by a margin of 16,933 votes, despite a wave in favor of the Congress that brought the grand old party to power with more than a two-thirds majority in the 90-member assembly.
Besides the former chief minister, other BJP candidates Geeta Ghasi Sahu (Khujji seat), Bharat Lal Verma (Dongargaon), and Vinod Khandekar (Dongargarh-SC) also filed their nomination papers on Monday.
According to election authorities, six candidates have so far filed seven nomination papers for the first phase. One of the six candidates filed two sets of nominations, according to the CEO's office. Three nominations were filed for the Rajnandgaon constituency, while two were for Dongargaon. One nomination each was filed for the Bhanupratappur and Dongargarh constituencies, respectively.
Congress candidate Girish Dewangan filed a nomination for the Rajnandgaon constituency against BJP’s Raman Singh.
The last date for filing nomination papers is October 20; scrutiny will take place the next day, and the last date for withdrawal is October 23.
