The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the main Opposition Congress in Madhya Pradesh are in a fix over increasing discontent just ahead of the Assembly elections.
Dissatisfaction stemmed over ticket distribution has become major cause of concern for the major political players in the State. Reports pouring in suggest that the BJP till Saturday evening the BJP has finalised tickets of its 76 legislators including 32 Ministers of the State Cabinet.BJP national organisational general secretary Ramlal after three rounds of meetings from Friday evening to Saturday morning left for New Delhi with the list of probable candidates.
Ramlal reached the State capital on Friday evening and participated in the ongoing brainstorming over candidates’ selection of the party at the Chief Minister house. The meetings started at about 11.30 pm and continued till 3 am. The meeting was attended by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, State president and MP Narendra Singh Tomar, State organisational general secretary Arvind Menon and chairman of the State election management committee and MP Anil Madhav Dave.
Sources from the BJP informed that Ramlal provided green signal for the 76 legislators including 32 Ministers having possibilities of winning. These include legislators who have registered victories from two terms to six terms. The 70 first timers and those who are projected with sleek chances to win in the surveys of the party would be considered later.
It is expected that the first list of the BJP candidates would be declared around October 25 and it is expected that it would include the 76 names that have been finalised. According to Tomar a meeting of the election committee would be held on October 20, and within a day or two names for all the 230 seats after due considerations on them would be forwarded to the Central Election Committee (CEC) where the announcement would be made.
Sources informed that the names of the PWD Minister Nagendra Singh who has announced that he would not contest election and Forest Minister Sartaj Singh and Agriculture Minister Ramakrishna Kusmaria facing strong opposition from party workers have not provided green signal. The State leadership would consider their names and then would inform the CEC of its decision over them.