BJP to field three MPs in state polls

In a major policy decision, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday decided to let its three chief ministerial candidates contest the upcoming state assembly polls, despite a blanket ban on its members of Parliament to contest provincial polls.

The immediate beneficiary of this decision, taken at the Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting yesterday, is Uma Bharti who is being projected by the party as its chief ministerial candidate in the Congress-ruled Madhya Pradesh.

Bharti has been named to contest the Chhatarpur seat falling under Badamalara district.

Vasundhara Raje and Madan Lal Khurana, BJP's chief ministerial candidates for Rajasthan and Delhi respectively, are also likely to figure in the lists for the two states that are likely to be announced later today, along with remaining seats for Madhya Pradesh.

Like Bharti, both Raje and Khurana are also members of Parliament.

The CEC of the BJP, which met at Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's residence yesterday, finalised 137 candidates for the 230-member Madhya Pradesh state legislative assembly.

A surprise name in the list is of Shivraj Singh Chouhan, one of the national general secretaries of the party who is being fielded against the incumbent Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh from Raghogarh seat.

Chouhan is a third term MP and represents Vidisha seat in the Lok Sabha.

While releasing the first list of candidates, party general secretary in-charge for Madhya Pradesh, Pramod Mahajan, said that the CEC decided to make an exception in case of Chouhan. The idea being to put up a formidable candidate against Digvijay and "ground" him in his home constituency.

This they feel will affect the Congress party's campaign considering Digvijay is the star campaigner of the rival party, seeking a third consecutive term in power.

The party office was choked with those seeking nominations as Mahajan appeared in the media room along with Bharti, Chouhan and Kailash Joshi, the state unit president. The list was released amidst chaotic scenes as aspirants entered the room to grab copies of the list, while the media failed to get hold of one. Mahajan denied that the decision to field Chouhan has been taken out of sheer panic.

"We have not panicked. We have made the Congress party panicky by fielding a formidable and matching candidate against their chief minister," he said.

Contrary to Mahajan's claim, party circles say that the BJP is indeed worried over Madhya Pradesh since out of 220 candidates named so far by the Congress party, about 135 of them are seen by the BJP as having a realistic chance of winning.

"Digvijay has managed to put up good candidates. Unless we put up good candidates and campaign intensely in Madhya Pradesh, Digvijay may scrape through to power yet again" a senior BJP functionary of Madhya Pradesh told Gulf News before the list was released.

Raghogarh is the pocket borough of Digvijay Singh. His younger brother Laxman Singh originally won the seat in 1993. They swapped the seats after Digvijay, an MP then, was chosen to head the Congress government.

Digvijay retained the seat in grand style in 1998 by forcing all his four rivals to forfeit their deposits, including the BJP's Chanchal Kumar Jain, who could poll only 13,281 votes as against 67,442 votes polled by Singh. As for Chhatarpur, the BJP lost this seat by a narrow margin of 1,815 votes to the Congress party in 1993 and bounced back in 1998 with Umesh Shukla defeating his Congress party rival by a margin of 12,816 votes.