Madhya Pradesh ex-CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan to contest Lok Sabha poll; Raman Singh, Vasundhara Raje unlikely

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, March 1

Former Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who has been traversing the country for party work since the election win in the state, will be fielded in the upcoming Lok Sabha poll. His colleagues — former Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje and former Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh — are unlikely to make the LS cut this time.

160 candidates finalised

• Talks on seats of top leaders, alongside 161 weakest segments where BJP is concentrating hard, were held at its poll panel meeting on Thursday
• The meeting lasted over five hours until 3.30 am on Friday and is learnt to have finalised around 160 candidates, including those on weak segments

The Tribune has learnt that the party could field Chouhan from Vidisha, the segment he represented in the Lok Sabha from 1991 to 2005 before going to Madhya Pradesh as CM. Raman Singh, currently the Chhattisgarh Assembly speaker, and Raje, a senior Rajasthan sitting MLA, are not likely to contest.

The discussions on the seats of some top leaders, alongside 161 weakest segments where the BJP is concentrating the hardest, were held at the marathon meeting of the party’s central election committee on Thursday.

The meeting lasted over five hours until 3.30 am on Friday and is learnt to have finalised around 160 candidates, including those on weak segments.

The seats of some sitting ministers, who are Rajya Sabha MPs, are also learnt to have been discussed with Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya to contest from Gujarat; Dharmendra Pradhan from Sambalpur in Odisha, Bhupender Yadav from either Bhiwani-Mahendragarh in Haryana or Alwar in Rajasthan and MoS Rajeev Chandrashekhar from Kerala, probably against three-term Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram.

Sources said 17 states were discussed at the meeting, including UP, where the BJP will leave six seats for allies, including two each for the RLD and the Apna Dal.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow, Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur and Smriti Irani from Amethi were cleared among many other sure seats of top leaders.

Asked if the ticket would be cut, sources said, the norm was to drop one-third MPs but the actual calculations would only be known later. The first list of at least 100 candidates, BJP sources said, could be released any day now.