Congress releases third list

Team Absolute|Bhopal Congress party’s Central Election Committee on Tuesday released the third list of candidates for the upcoming assembly by-polls in the state that includes a Sadhvi from BJP leader Uma Bharti’s traditional Bada Malhera seat and changed its Badnawar candidate as was disclosed by Dhar Congress unit earlier.This list declared the names of candidates for Morena, Bada malehra and Mehgaon seats, besides changing Abhishekh Singh Tinku Bana from Badnawar. Singh considered a waek caniddate has been replaced by Kamal Patel, a senior party leader in the constituency based of feedback from local Congress workers. With the third list, Congress has declared its candidates for 27 out of 28 seats. The only seat on hold is for Biaora seat that was vacated after the recent demise of sitting Congress MLA Govardhan Singh. Hemant Katare, former MLA from Ater assembly seat and son of deceased former LOP Satyadav Katare, has been fielded by the party from Mehgaon in Bhind district. Mehgaon is a seat which has been won by the Congress twice since 1990. BJP has won the seat thrice, BSP once and in 2003 it was won by an independent Munna Singh.Katare junior was elected in a by-poll from Ater seat after the demise of his father in October 2016. He was fielded from Ater in the 2018 assembly elections against minister Arvind Bhadoria, but lost.Fielding of Katare from neighbouring Mehgaon reveals that the Congress has still not forgiven party’s former deputy leader of opposition Choudhary Rakesh Singh Chaturvedi for defecting on the floor of the assembly in July 2013. Rakesh Singh had defected from the party on a day