The Congress on Sunday announced the first list of candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana.
While the party announced 144 party candidates in Madhya Pradesh, a list of 30 candidates was released for Chhattisgarh. In Telangana, it has released the names of 55 candidates.
The Election Commission of India announced last week that Madhya Pradesh will go to polls on November 17 while elections in Chhattisgarh will be held in two phases on November 7 and 17. Telangana will vote on November 30.
Madhya Pradesh
The Congress has given tickets to 69 sitting MLAs, including state unit chief Kamal Nath, in the first list released for Madhya Pradesh. Nath has been fielded from his home turf Chhindwara, while Rajya Sabha member Digvijaya Singh’s son Jaivardhan Singh will contest from Raghogarh and brother Lakshman Singh from Chachoura in Guna.
The Opposition party has also given a ticket to actor Vikram Mastal, who played the role of Hanuman in an adaptation of Ramayan, from Budhni in Sehore. He will contest against Chief Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
In a press conference, Congress media panellist Charan Singh Sapra stated that his party has given tickets to 39 candidates from the Other Backward Classes, 22 from Scheduled Castes and 30 from Scheduled Tribes. Forty-seven candidates on the list are from the General Category, six are minorities and 19 are women. Sapra said that 65 of the 144 candidates on the list are below the age of 50.
Currently, the BJP is in power in Madhya Pradesh even though it lost the last election to the Congress. The party took the reins in 2020 after Kamal Nath’s Congress government was felled by the defection of 22 MLAs loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia.
Chhattisgarh
Twenty-two sitting MLAs, including Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and Deputy Chief Minister TS Singh Deo, feature in the first list. Baghel has been fielded from his Patan Assembly constituency and Deo from Ambikapur.
The party has dropped eight MLAs and fielded nine Other Backward Classes candidates on 13 general seats, reported the Hindustan Times.
State BJP chief Arun Sao said that the Bhupesh Baghel government in Chhattisgarh is trying to blame its legislators for its failures, reported PTI. “The Congress has renominated those candidates who have given protection to corruption,” said Sao. “It shows the party’s intention to commit scams [if it retains power].”
In the 2018 Assembly polls, the Congress won 68 out of 90 seats in the seats, while the BJP got 15.
Telangana
The party has listed prominent names such as Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president A Revanth Reddy and Congress Legislature Party leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka in the first list.
While Revanth Reddy will contest from his home constituency of Kodangal, former state Congress chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy will fight the elections from Huzurnagar. Bhongir MP Komatireddy Venkat Reddy will contest from Nalgonda. All three are sitting Lok Sabha MPs from Telangana.
Of the 55 names, 17 are from the Reddy community, 12 from the Other Backward Classes, 12 belong to the Scheduled Castes and two are from the Scheduled Tribes. Seven candidates are from the Velama community, a Telugu peasant caste, and two are Muslim.
In the last Assembly polls, the Bharat Rashtra Samiti won 88 out of 119 seats, while Congress secured 19 seats.
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