In the second list of candidates declared on Tuesday, the Congress denied tickets to relatives of three parliamentarians. These leaders had been lobbying for tickets for long.
The Opposition Congress in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday declared its second list of 82 candidates. Earlier, the party had declared first list of 115 candidates on Friday with the second list the Congress has declared 197 candidates for the 230-member Assembly of the State. Party sources said that the remaining candidates for the remaining 33 seats could be declared on Wednesday.
The parliamentarians who were demanding tickets are -- Vijaylaxmi Sadho for her brother Devendra from Maheshwar, Sajjan Singh Verma also for his brother Pawan from Sonkutch and Premchand Guddu for his son Ajit Borasi.
Besides, the Congress has fielded its sitting MlA Prabhudayal Gehlot's son Harch and late Subhash Yadav's younger son Sachin Yadav from Kasrawad.
Sachin is younger brother of former Union Minister Arun Yadav and parliamentarian from Khargone. Kasrawad considered as the traditional seat of Yadav family. This constituency was earlier represented by late Subhash Yadav who remained Deputy Chief Minister in erstwhile Digvijay Singh Cabinet and was also State Congress president.
Among others who succeeded in getting ticket for their kin include Congress general secretary and former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh's son Jaivardhan Singh who has been fielded from Raghogarh, former Union Minister and former State Congress president Suresh Pachouri's nephew Gaurav Awasthi who has been fielded from Bhojpur.
This is for the first time that the Congress has come out with three tickets to Muslim candidates. Abdul Mujib Khan has been fielded from Rewa, Feroz Ahmed from Murwara and Yusuf Kadappa from Jaora. Earlier, in the first list of the Congress, only one candidate Arif Aqeel was fielded from Bhopal North.
The Congress trying to balance cast equation and in the process adequate number of OBC candidates figure in the list while there are about 11 Brahmins and three Muslims. Now, the Congress has fielded a total of four Muslims in order to attract the community that was deviating from it.
Meanwhile, the party sources claimed that the list of remaining 33 candidates is also ready, but it could not be declared as there was much opposition on several names figuring in the list.
In the ticket distribution process, PCC chief Kantilal Bhuria was cornered by the high command. A few months ago, two leaders of Sagar division Sushil Tiwari and Harsh Yadav were suspended from the party on the charge of misbehaviour with Bhuria. However, both the leaders managed to get party ticket from Sagar and Deori respectively.
Since, Tiwari and Yadav were close to Union Minister Kamal Nath, not only managed to get reinstated in the party but got benefited too.