Gwalior:

Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday said the party’s parliamentary board will take a decision on who will be the next chief minister of Madhya Pradesh after it wins the November 17 assembly elections and forms a government in the state.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s move of fielding seven Lok Sabha members, including three Union ministers – Narendra Singh Tomar, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Prahlad Patel – and also party’s general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya for the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls has signalled that has kept options open for the state’s top post.

Addressing a press conference here, former Union minister Prasad said, “It is the tradition of the party that the parliamentary board takes the decision…And opinion of MLAs will be taken when the government is formed. A deserving person will become the chief minister.”

He was replying to a question about who could be the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh if the BJP wins.

During a media interaction in August this year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had refused to give a direct reply, when asked if incumbent Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will continue to be the chief minister if the BJP retains power after the elections.

“Why are you (media) doing the party’s work? Our party will do its own work. Shivraj ji is chief minister and we are in the election…Take the development works of Modi ji (PM Modi) and Shivraj ji to the public. Also highlight if the Congress did any development,” Mr Shah had said.

Targeting the opposition Congress, Mr Prasad said when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, PM Narendra Modi condemned it, but at the same time, India helped the needy persons in Palestine.

“But the stand of the Congress has been the same as that of the Muslim League in Kerala. A Hamas leader addressed a rally in Kerala but Congress is maintaining silence on the issue. Did the Congress oppose when INDIA bloc constituents termed Sanatana Dharma as dengue and malaria?” he asked.

On the one hand the Congress keeps silence when Sanatan Dharmaa is insulted, while on the other it tries to connect with Hamas for votes, the BJP MP alleged.

Elections to the 230-member Madhya Pradesh assembly will be held on November 17.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Bhopal:

Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh on Monday asserted his party colleague Kamal Nath wanted to have an alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) for the next month’s Madhya Pradesh assembly polls “with full honesty”, but maintained he does not know how the talks for a tie-up between the two INDIA bloc members got derailed.

Digvijaya Singh praised SP president Akhilesh Yadav for his leadership qualities, but disagreed with Mr Nath, the Madhya Pradesh Congress head, over his choice of words while dismissing his (Yadav’s) criticism for not leaving any seat in MP for the Uttar Pradesh-based party for the November 17 polls.

The former CM said he had suggested Mr Nath to leave four assembly seats for the SP, which wanted to field nominees in half a dozen segments.

Talking to reporters at his residence in Bhopal, he sought to downplay the war of wards between the Congress and the SP that erupted after the national outfit did not allocate any assembly seat to the Yadav-led party despite the two being constituents of the INDIA alliance.

“It is okay… friendly fights do take place between alliance partners, but I know the SP and Akhilesh will never go with the BJP,” said the Rajya Sabha member.

After the SP president slammed the Congress leadership last week for not having an alliance in Madhya Pradesh, Mr Nath, while replying to questions from media persons on the tie-up issue, had reportedly said, “Chhodiye Akhilesh Vakhilesh” (just leave Akhilesh).

Digvijaya Singh disapproved of Kamal Nath’s dismissal of Mr Yadav’s criticism.

“I don’t know how he (Nath) said so. One should avoid such reactions about a leader of the (INDIA) alliance,” he said.

The Rajya Sabha member maintained there a discussion within the Congress over having a tie-up with the SP for the polls to the 230-member assembly.

The SP has released its own lists of candidates for more than two dozen seats.

Digvijaya Singh said “Nath had sent Congress leader Ashok Singh to me for a discussion with SP leaders led by Deep Narayan Yadav. We had a discussion in this room (of his residence in Bhopal). They (SP) had won one seat Bijawar (in Bundelkhand region in 2018 polls) and were second in two others. The SP wanted six seats, but I suggested Nath to leave four seats for the SP.

“Later, the matter went to the Congress Working Committee and the party’s central leadership, but they left the issue of (tie-up with SP) to the state leadership.” Digvijaya Singh said the INDIA grouping will contest the next Lok Sabha polls unitedly, but maintained issues related to state elections are different.

“I don’t know where this talk (of alliance in MP) got derailed. But as far as Nath is concerned, I can say he wanted to have an alliance with the SP with full honesty (Kamal Nath ji poori imandar is samjhouta karna chahta the),” he said.

The Congress veteran recalled his strong bonding with SP patriarch and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister the late Mulayam Singh Yadav.

When pointed out that posters of Akhilesh Yadav as future Prime Minister were displayed in Lucknow, Mr Singh feigned ignorance about the matter.

Answering a question over the Congress fielding sitting MLA from Pichhore KP Singh from Shivpuri, part of the home turf of Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Rajya Sabha MP said his party colleague was a popular leader and also his relative.

Asked whether this was done to prevent Scindia from contesting from Shivpuri on a BJP ticket, Digvijaya Singh said, “Definitely. He (Scindia) ran away as he was scared (to face KP Singh).” Sitting BJP MLA from Shivpuri and state minister Yashodhara Raje Scindia, an aunt of Jyotiraditya Scindia, has opted out of contesting elections due to her ill health.

Earlier, Digvijaya Singh had publicly disapproved of Mr Nath’s “tear clothes” remarks made in context of distribution of poll tickets, during an event organised to release the Congress manifesto last week.

A video of Mr Nath, where he is asking party men to “tear clothes” of his colleague Singh over denial of ticket to a leader from Shivpuri, fuelled talks of a rift in the party over selection of nominees.

In the viral video, Mr Nath is heard telling a group of people, said to be supporters of party leader Virendra Raghuvanshi, that he had left the issue of (selection of Raghuvanshi’s seat) to Digvijaya Singh and his MLA-son Jaivardhan Singh.

The state Congress president is then heard telling the group to “tear clothes” of Digvijaya Singh (over the ticket denial issue).

Mr Raghuvanshi, a former BJP legislator, joined the Congress earlier this month. He had sought a Congress ticket from the Shivpuri assembly seat, but the party fielded KP Singh, a six-time MLA from Pichhore, from there.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Bhopal:

There were no surprises in the BJP’s fourth list for the upcoming Madhya Pradesh elections as Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan featured on the list of 57 hopefuls.

The Chief Minister will contest from the Budhni constituency for the sixth time.

The BJP has so far announced 136 candidates of the 230 seats it will contest in the state. Twenty-four ministers were fielded from the seats they currently represent, despite some facing high anti-incumbency.

Six Ministers and MLAs, loyalists of Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, have been fielded from their current constituencies.

The fourth list includes Vidhan Sabha Speaker Girish Gautam, who had failed to get his son elected in the 2022 panchayat polls in the state’s Rewa district. Mr Gautam has been fielded from the Deotalab seat which he managed to retain by just 1,080 votes in 2018.

Political circles were abuzz with possibilities of the Chief Minister, who is also a five-time former Vidisha MP, either being benched in the upcoming polls to be fielded in the next year’s crucial Lok Sabha elections or being shifted to a seat that is more challenging for the next month’s poll.

Adding to the buzz, the Chief Minister, during a speech in the state’s Dindori district, had asked people whether he should contest the upcoming polls.

However, with the Chief Minister’s name on the BJP’s fourth list, all speculations have been put to rest.

The Congress is yet to announce the names of its candidates and may release its lists during the Navratri, which begins on October 15.

Along with Madhya Pradesh, the BJP also announced the second list for Chhattisgarh with 64 candidates. Union Minister Renuka Singh will contest from the Bharatpur-Sonhat seat, Gomati Sai from Pathalgaon and Arun Sao, an MP from Bilaspur and the party’s state chief, from the Lormi seat.

Former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh will contest from Rajnandgaon – his traditional seat.

The BJP is yet to declare the names of candidates for five seats in Chhattisgarh, including for Ambikapur – the pocket borough of Deputy Chief Minister TS Singh Deo. A few days ago, Mr Singh Deo, a senior Congress leader, thanked PM Modi for all the projects he announced.

“We have worked under the guidance of the Centre and I do not want to miss out on saying that, in my experience, I did not feel any partiality. In the state, when we asked for something from the Centre, they never denied it. I believe the state and the Centre will work together to take the country and state forward,” he had said.

Madhya Pradesh will vote in a single phase, while Chhattisgarh in two phases next month. The results will be declared on December 3.

Bhopal:

A fierce competition among parties to offer freebies and guarantees, a scramble for tribal, OBC, women votes and a touch of Hindutva – all have combined to make the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls a high-stakes battle with main rivals BJP and the Congress pulling out all the stops to gain power.

After a close contest in 2018, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress are marshalling all resources at their disposal to notch a clear majority in the 230-member House to avoid post-result complications.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is on a freebies-announcing spree, mostly for women, and state Congress president Kamal Nath is countering his rival’s doles with his own pre-poll guarantees and wooing OBC voters.

With a long history of bipolar politics, dominated by the Congress and the BJP, Madhya Pradesh — located in the geographic heart of India — will also see the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) trying to make its presence felt in the state this time around.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is trying to regain its lost voter base in the state, where it had committed Dalit electors and pockets of influence for decades.

At a time when four-term BJP chief minister Mr Chouhan (64) and his astute rival Mr Nath (76) are fighting the toughest electoral battle of their political careers, Delhi CM and AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal is going all out to see that his outfit puts up a convincing show and wins a good number of seats.

Mr Kejriwal along with Punjab CM Bhagwant Singh Mann has visited MP and addressed four rallies since March and announced plenty of freebies like free education, medical care and electricity to win over voters and take on the well entrenched parties like the BJP and the Congress.

The BJP is pinning hopes on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s charisma to get voters on their side with “MP Ke Man Mein Modi” slogan and theme song of electioneering focused on him. Prime Minister Modi has addressed seven rallies in just 6 months.

The BJP is avoiding projecting Mr Chouhan as its chief ministerial candidate in an attempt to blunt anti-incumbency against him.

But this has not dampened the spirit of Mr Chouhan, the party’s longest-serving chief minister and a leader from LK Advani’s era who is still active in the Prime Minister Modi-led BJP.

Undaunted by central leadership’s lack of open support for him, Mr Chouhan, known for his ‘mama’ (maternal uncle) image, has been announcing a slew of sops to voters, especially women.

He has already hiked the financial aid under the ‘Ladli Behna Yojana’ from Rs 1,000 a month to Rs 1,250 and then to Rs 1,500 (proposed) for 1.32 crore women in the state.

The state government has earmarked a whopping Rs 16,000 crore for the scheme targeted at women from financially weaker sections. It has promised to raise the financial aid to Rs 3,000 per month gradually.

Mr Chouhan has reached out to more than half of the 2.6 crore women voters, who outnumber their male peers in at least 18 assembly seats, as per an estimate.

The CM launched the Ladli Behna Yojana barely two days after Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra kick-started her party’s campaign with a rally in Jabalpur on June 12 where she announced Rs 1,500 per month to eligible women under the ‘Nari Samman Nidhi’ if her party is voted to power.

She also announced 100 units of free electricity to every household and LPG cylinders at Rs 500 each.

Priyanka Gandhi said the old pension scheme would be brought back for MP government employees if the Congress came to power.

Months after Priyanka Gandhi’s promise, Mr Chouhan also announced to provide a cooking gas cylinder at Rs 500.

Besides, the CM is spending more than Rs 3,000 crore on building, rebuilding or sprucing up temples, including the Mahakaleshwar Temple in Ujjain, and museums attached to them.

On September 21, Mr Chouhan unveiled a 108-feet tall statue of Hindu saint Adi Shankaracharya at Omkareshwar in Khandwa district.

For the Congress, Priyanka Gandhi and her brother Rahul Gandhi are leading the campaign. Priyanka Gandhi, who opened the Congress campaign in June, has addressed two rallies since then.

Priyanka Gandhi started her visit by worshipping the Narmada river in Jabalpur amid chants of ‘Jai Narmada’ and ‘Jai Bajrang Bali’. The day she sounded the poll bugle, the replica of Lord Hanuman’s mace dotted busy road crossings in Jabalpur city.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, according to party insiders, will focus on 35 seats reserved for SC candidates. Mr Kharge addressed a rally in Sagar district in August.

Besides PM Modi, other top BJP leaders, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, a key poll strategist, and party president JP Nadda are also focusing on the state.

In the Congress camp, party veteran Digvijaya Singh has already thrown his weight behind Kamal Nath and backed him as the CM face.

Last time around, Mr Nath proved his mettle by leading the Congress to power in 2018 and then becoming the CM though he could not complete his term due to a rebellion by MLAs supporting now Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia.

Mr Nath has been aggressively wooing the OBCs, who account for 45 per cent of MP’s population. During his 15-month-long stint as CM, he raised the quota for the OBCs from 14 per cent to 27 per cent.

Although the court overturned the decision, citing 50 per cent cap on reservation, the political move made it clear the Congress is banking heavily on the OBCs.

Knowing the OBCs were overwhelmingly with the BJP in the last three assembly polls, Mr Nath is nurturing the formidable vote bank in the current elections.

Apart from promising to restore 27 per cent reservation for the OBCs, the Congress has assured a caste-based census in MP and support for OBC quota within the Women’s Reservation Bill.

Mr Nath and his party are also taking on the BJP over corruption. The opposition party has been raising slogans like “50 per cent commission ki sarkar” to allege massive graft under the BJP rule.

To counter BJP’s Hindutva, Mr Nath organised mega religious events in his home turf Chhindwara where Hindu preachers Dhirendra Shastri and Pradeep Mishra delivered sermons to tens of thousands of devotees.

The former Union minister also projected himself as an ardent devotee of Lord Hanuman and reminded people he had built a 102-feet- tall idol of the Hindu god in Chhindwara.

The BJP has stolen a march on the Congress by declaring 79 candidates so far. The saffron party has fielded three Union ministers – Narendra Singh Tomar, Prahlad Patel and Faggan Singh Kulaste — and four other Lok Sabha MPs besides general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya.

Mr Tomar, Mr Patel and Mr Vijayvargiya, according to political observers, nurse the dream of becoming CM. Besides them, MP Home Minister Narottam Mishra is also seen as a CM aspirant.

According to Congress leaders, the party has received more than 4,000 applications for the 230 assembly seats, making selection of candidates a cumbersome and tricky affair.

The Congress has launched ‘Jan Aakrosh Yatras’ (public outrage marches) to cash in on what it sees as voter resentment against the BJP.

The BJP has already completed its ‘Jan Ashirwad Yatras’ (marches to seek people’s blessings) and come up with the slogan ‘abki bar 150 par’ (victory in more than 150 seats this time).

In the November 2018 polls, the Congress had won 114 seats, while the BJP finished second with 109.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)