The Chhattisgarh unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is ready with its panel of names for the ensuing lok Sabha polls. “The party is ready with the list and the meeting of the poll committee on Monday is to seek consensus of the senior leaders on the names before sending them for a green signal from the party’s Central Committee in New Delhi,” party sources here informed The Pioneer.
Chief Minister Raman Singh had already announced on March 6 that the list of the panel of names of the candidates would be sent to the party’s Central Committee when the State-level poll committee meets in Raipur on March 10. There is all likelihood of 6 of the sitting MPs getting repeated mainly Ramesh Bais from Raipur, Saroj Pandey from Durg, Vishnudev Sai from Raigarh, Madhusudan Yadav from Rajnandgaon, Kamla Devi Patle from Janjgir-Champa and Dinesh Kashyap from Bastar.
The panel of names for the rest of the five seats have undergone early discussions among the State-level party leaders and they could have one or two new faces, sources stated. The Bilaspur seat could witness a close contest as Prabal Pratap Singh Judeo, son of late BJP MP Dilip Singh Judeo was keen on contesting from his late father’s seat if offered a ticket with the fact that niece of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Karuna Shukla had been fielded by the Congress party from the seat after she joined the party a few days back.
Similar is the situation with the Surguja seat where the sitting BJP MP Muralilal Singh died in December last year has left a vaccum. It was learnt that some party leaders had approached Ranvijay Pratap Singh Judeo who was recently nominated to the Rajya Sabha to ask him if he was willing to contest from the Surguja seat. In the Korba lok Sabha seat, the lone seat won by the Congress party during the last polls with Union Minister of State for Agriculture Dr Charan Das Mahant as the sitting MP, the party leaders were learnt to be looking for a popular face to ensure a victory.