In a list released during midnight, the Congress announced candidature of nine aspirants including the most talked about Digvijay Singh from Bhopal. The grand old party has named 38 candidates in the first list.

The list of nine includes three women including Minakshi Natrajan, a close aide of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, from Mandsaur, Kavita Singh from Khajuraho and Pramila Singh, the former BJP MLA, from tribal dominated Shahdol.

Pramila, wife of former Umaria district collector Amarpal Singh, had deserted BJP after being denied ticket ahead of assembly polls and had joined Congress. Her candidature was cleared after Congress’s 2016 by-poll candidate Himadri Singh switched over to BJP days ago.

Himadri too found her name in the first BJP list for MP. So it would be an all women affair in Shahdol parliamentary seat. The Congress seems to have handpicked Pramila Singh even before Himadri switched loyalties as Singh’s husband and the then Umaria collector Amarpal Singh was transferred presumably to avoid code of conduct issues once Pramila was named a Congress nominee.

Meanwhile, Digvijaya Singh’s nomination from Bhopal has caused sizable flutter and seen as a move to wrest prestigious Bhopal seat from BJP which is holding on to it since 1989.

It is also seen as a political test for Singh who is known to be a wily politician and in the past had decimated his opponents in and outside Congress.

By fielding him from Bhopal the Congress has put him in a tricky situation as during his tenure in power the two-time CM had severed relations with Government staffers and the BJP also holds four out of seven assembly seats in Bhopal.