In an effort to gain an advantage over Congress, the BJP has fielded heavyweight MP Vijay Baghel from Durg against Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel from Patan. The two are competing for 21 seats in the state and 39 of the seats in Madhya Pradesh that have been shortlisted.
The Durg MP had polled 54.4% of the votes in Patan segment of his Lok Sabha constituency and the leadership obviously expects him to complicate matters for CM Baghel on the latter’s home turf. The party has come out with the first list of its candidates for the two states months ahead of the elections, in a break from its usual practice.
The lists made public for both Chhattisgarh and MP include assembly seats that the party views as competitive. The purpose of announcing candidates so early is to give them time to better prepare and to express their will to make no concessions.
The lists name five women each in the two states and contain a large number of SC, ST reserved constituencies where the saffron party had suffered serious reverses in the 2018 polls. BJP has named its national SC Morcha chief Lal Singh Arya as the candidate from Gohad in Madhya Pradesh. The candidates were decided at BJP’s Central Election Committee meeting, which was chaired by party chief J P Nadda and attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah among other senior leaders.