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BJP's Madhya Pradesh 'collective leadership' plan explains 7 MPs in second list
The BJP's move in Madhya Pradesh signals the party's intent to contest the elections under a collective leadership, with prominent figures from different regions in the fray.
The BJP released the second list of 39 candidates in Madhya Pradesh which will go to polls later this year. Notably, the ruling party named seven MPs, including Union Ministers Faggan Singh Kulaste, Prahlad Singh Patel, and Narendra Singh Tomar.
The other four Lok Sabha MPs are Riti Pathak from Sidhi, Rakesh Singh from Jabalpur (West), Ganesh Singh from Satna and Udaypratap Singh from Gadarwara.
The BJP has attempted this formula in assembly elections in the past. In the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections, BJP fielded five of its sitting Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs. Only two BJP MPs, Jagannath Sarkar and Nisith Pramanik, managed to win in their constituencies, Santipur and Dinhata. The others, MPs Swapan Dasgupta, Locket Chatterjee and Babul Supriyo, faced defeat.
In Kerala, actor-turned-politician and then Rajya Sabha MP, Suresh Gopi, who contested from Thrissur, secured the third position when final votes were counted. Similarly, then Rajya Sabha MP and former Union Minister KJ Alphons did not create any stir in the Kanjirappally seat and lost the election.
Similarly, in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the BJP pitted Union Minister of State (MoS) SP Singh Baghel against Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav in the high-profile seat of Karhal. Akhilesh Yadav defeated Baghel by a big margin. The BJP allowed Pratima Bhoumik to contest the state elections from Tripura despite being an elected MP and a Union Minister of State. She contested from Dhanpur Assembly constituency and won.
It is for the first time in recent years that the BJP has decided to field such a large number of sitting MPs in any Assembly election. Each of these MPs represents diverse regions in Madhya Pradesh. The move signals the party's intent to contest the elections under collective leadership, with prominent figures from various regions fighting the elections. Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the BJP's longest-serving chief minister, has not been named as a candidate so far amid talk of BJP's concerns about anti-incumbency.
PAST TRENDS OF BJP FIELDING MPs IN ASSEMBLY POLLS
WEST BENGAL: 2021

KERALA: 2021

UTTAR PRADESH: 2022

TRIPURA: 2023

CONGRESS ON BJP'S CANDIDATE LIST
Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and Congress state unit chief Kamal Nath took a jibe at the BJP and claimed that the ruling party has accepted defeat in the upcoming Assembly polls and played its "last bet of false hope".
“The candidates' list of the BJP, which claims to have crores of party workers, is surely a stamp on the party's internal defeat and refutes the claims of development during the eighteen-and-a-half years of BJP government and more than 15 years of Shivraj's (Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan) rule," Kamal Nath wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter).
The Congress leader also said the hollow claims of Madhya Pradesh's development have been exposed and proved to be a "white lie".
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