BJP goes all out to retain power in Madhya Pradesh

Bhopal: The BJP has thrown open the leadership in Madhya Pradesh and deployed its big guns, several of whom have never contested Assembly polls, from the state to deliver the goods for the party in the elections where it is facing a keen challenge from the Congress.

Despite the sense that the BJP will be fielding a few of its MPs in the Assembly polls in several states, the extent of their deployment has taken even many within the party by surprise, with three Union ministers and four other MPs being named as candidates in the second list of nominees for 39 seats.

The BJP might be looking to tighten the screws on Shivraj Singh Chouhan, party's longest-serving Chief Minister, by not announcing his constituency in even the second list of candidates for the upcoming Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections released on Monday. Also the incumbent party has kept the chief ministerial race wide open, a look at 76 of the total 230 candidates it has released so far shows.

Two of the ministers, Narendra Singh Tomar and Faggan Singh Kulaste, will be contesting from seats that were won by the Congress in 2018, while three of the four other Lok Sabha MPs will also fight in constituencies where the main opposition party had emerged victorious in the last Assembly polls.

A former state BJP president, Tomar was appointed in July as the convenor of the party's election management committee in Madhya Pradesh, a responsibility which required him to oversee the entire state. A three-term MP, Tomar was an MLA for two terms till 2008 and has been in Lok Sabha since 2009.

Union minister Prahlad Singh Patel is a five-term Lok Sabha MP and has never been an MLA while Kulaste, a tribal leader, was last an MLA way back in 1992 before getting elected to Lok Sabha six times and Rajya Sabha once.

Among other MPs fighting assembly polls for the first time are Ganesh Singh, a four-term Lok Sabha member, and Rakesh Singh, also a four-term Lok Sabha member. Rakesh Singh has also been the state party president. Party leaders are of the view that the leadership has sought to send out several messages with their choices while acknowledging the strong challenge the BJP faces from the Congress, which had bettered its tally in the state assembly in 2018 for the first time after 1998.

Amid a view that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who led the BJP to massive wins in 2008 and 2013 before found wanting in 2018, is no longer the same political force, the party has sought to keep the leadership issue open by pitting many of its big names in the contest in a signal to those supporters who may no longer be drawn to him but remain sympathetic to it. It is also a message to these senior leaders, who include national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, long seen as an aspirant for the chief minister's chair, that they should prove their mettle by ensuring a good show for the party before their leadership claim is considered sympathetically by its top brass, sources noted.

With all regional satraps barring Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia fighting the Assembly polls expected in November-December, the party is hopeful that this will minimise factional feuds, an issue that has plagued the state organisation, and result in a cohesive campaign.