CONGRESS DECLARES FIRST LIST OF CANDIDATES FOR BY-POLLS

Team Absolute|Bhopal The All India Congress Committee (AICC) declared its first list of 15 candidates on Friday for the upcoming by-elections for 27 seats in Madhya Pradesh (MP), which will be held along with Bihar assembly polls as was announced by the Election Commission of India (ECI) recently. Bihar is slated to go to polls in October-November. The candidates’ list for the by-election has been released by AICC general secretary Mukul Wasnik, said Narendra Saluja, media coordinator, MP Congress. The candidates declared for by-polls are mostly of the constituencies in Gwalior- Chambal region. Name of Ravindra Singh Tomar for Dimni assembly constituency, Satyaprakash Sankhwar for Ambah, a Scheduled Caste (SC)-reserved constituency; Mevaram Jatav for Gohad (SC); Sunil Sharma (Gwalior); Suresh Raje for Dabra (SC); Phul Singh Baraiya for Bhander (SC); Pragilal Jatav-Karera (SC); Kanhaiyalal Agrawal (Bamori); Asha Dohre for Ashok Nagar (SC); Vishwanath Singh Kunjam for Anuppur, a Scheduled Tribe (ST)-reserved constituency; Madanlal Choudhary-Ahirwar for Sanchi (SC); Vipin Wankhede for Agar (SC); Rajveer Singh Baghel (Hatpipalya); Ram Kishan Patel for Nepanagar (ST); and Premchand Guddu for Sanwer (SC). Of the 27 assembly seats, where the by-polls will be held, 16 fall under the Gwalior-Chambal region. The Congress is yet to announce the candidates’ names in the remaining seven seats in the region and five seats in the other regions. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), too, had announced eight candidates’ names on August 27 for the seats in the Gwalior-Chambal region. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has not yet announced its candidates’ names for the upcoming bypolls. Saluja exuded optimism about the party’s by-poll prospects. “The party has selected the best candidates for these constituencies. They are all going to win the upcoming by-elections,” Saluja said. However, State BJP vicepresident Vijesh Lunawat said, “Rumblings have already started within the Congress after the names of some of the by-poll candidateswere declared. However, the selection of the candidates is the Congress’s internal matter. The BJP has been confident of its victory in the by-polls right from the outset.”