BJP denies tickets to 14 MLAs
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday nominated Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh from his present assembly segment Rajnandgaon and denied tickets to 14 sitting legislators, including minister Ramshila Sahu, in the first list of 77 candidates for the state assembly elections to be held in two phases in November.
The candidates for Telangana and Mizoram were also announced at a meeting of the party’s central election committee attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Rajnath Singh and party’s national president Amit Shah, among others.
Candidates for the other two BJP ruled states Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan will be announced later.
Among the 77 candidates announced out of a total of 90 assembly segments in Chattisgarh, 14 are women candidates and 14 sitting MLAs have been replaced with new names, Union health minister J P Nadda said.
The minister said party’s member of Parliament Vikram Usendi will contest from Antahgarh seat of Bastar region and former Raipur collector OP Chaudhary, who recently joined BJP, will contest from Kharsaiya seat.
The sitting MLAs who were denied ticket are Ramshila Sahu (minister), Yudhveer Singh Judev , Sunita Rathiya, Vidhyaratan Bhasin, Raju Khatriya, Bhojram Nag and Naveen Markandey.
Congress spokesperson RP Singh said that the list reflects that BJP has lost the election even before the contest. “From the list it is clear that the BJP will not cross 25-mark in Chhattisgarh,” said Singh.
On November 12, 18 seats in the Maoist-affected Bastar region will go for polls for which the BJP announced 17 candidates.
The Congress earlier this week had announced 12 candidates from the region.
The second phase of elections is scheduled on November 20, for which the BJP has announced 60 candidates.
The Congress is yet to announce list for the segments going to polls in second phase.
Votes in all five poll bound states will be counted on December 7.
In 2013, the BJP won 49 seats, Congress 39, BSP and independent one each. The vote difference between the Congress and the BJP was less than one percentage point then.
The Bharatiya Janata Party also released a list of 38 candidates, including five sitting legislators, for the 119 member Telangana assembly, which will go to polls on December 7.
The Telangana list includes names of three women, three scheduled castes and six tribals. Sitting member of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS)Babu Mohan, who joined the BJP recently, has been given ticket from his present constituency Andole.
Hindu seer Swamy Paripoornananda, who joined the BJP on Friday, did not find a place in the first list.
The party also released a list of 13 candidates for the 40 member Mizoram assembly, for which election will be held on November 28.