The appointment of Surendranath Singh as Bhopal district president on Monday seems an indication that he would not get party ticket in the 2018 assembly elections.
Singh is BJP legislator from Bhopal Central assembly constituency.
Notably, State BJP president Nandkumar Singh Chouhan had declared that district presidents of the party would not be given party tickets in assembly elections.
On October 4, 2016, Chouhan had said that election tickets will be given to winnable candidates while job of the district BJP president will be to ensure that those candidates win.The State BJP president was addressing the district working committee meeting in Khargone. Speaking to reporters, Chouhan had explained that king maker is bigger than the king. District presidents' assignment will be to send BJP legislators to the state assembly.
However, when contacted on Monday, Chouhan took a complete U turn stating that he never declared that the district presidents would not get party ticket. “I had only said that the primary duty of the district presidents would be to work for the party,” he said, adding that the candidature of the district presidents, if comes would be considered on merit basis.
Party sources said that there were several claimants for the post of Bhopal district president, but the only criteria for selecting Surendranath Singh was that party did not want any other leader to emerge stronger in the State capital.
In the next assembly elections, the party would face tough competition among the ticket claimants. The sitting MlAs Babulal Gaur, Vishwas Sarang, Uma Shankar Gupta, Rameshwar Sharma and Vishnu Khatri are already in the queue, while other claimants are- Gaur’s daughter-in-law Krishna Gaur, Mayor Alok Sharma, MP Alok Sanjar, MP Tourism Development Corporation Chairman Tapan Bhowmik and Dhruv Narayan Singh.