Madhya Pradesh polls: Cong's first list of 144 candidates has 69 MLAs; actor Vikram Mastal to fight against CM Chouhan

Bhopal: The opposition Congress has given tickets to 69 sitting legislators, including state unit chief Kamal Nath, in the first list of its 144 candidates announced on Sunday for the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls scheduled next month.

Actor Vikram Mastal, who played the role of Lord Hanuman in a television serial, has been fielded by the party from Budhni in Sehore against MP Chief Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

State Congress president and former chief minister Kamal Nath has been fielded from his home-turf Chhindwara.

Polls to the 230-member state assembly will be held on November 17, while votes will be counted on December 3.

The Congress has fielded Rajya Sabha member Digvijaya Singh's son Jaivardhan Singh from Raghogarh and brother Lakshman Singh from Chachoura in Guna. Both are sitting legislators.

Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Dr Govind Singh has been fielded from Lahar constituency in Bhind district, while former BJP MP Bodh Singh Bhagat, who recently joined the Congress, has been fielded from Katangi in Balaghat district.

The first list of Congress candidates also includes former ministers Ajay Singh (Churhat), Ramnivas Rawat (Vijaypur), Lakhan Singh Yadav (Bhitarwar), Harsh Yadav (Deori), Mukesh Nayak (Pawai), Kamleshwar Patel (Sihawal), Lakha Ghanghoriya (Jabalpur-East), Tarun Bhanot (Jabalpur-West), Omkar Singh Markam (Dindori), Sukhdev Panse (Multai), Sajjan Singh Verma (Sonkatch), Vijay Laxmi Sadho (Maheshwar), Sachin Yadav (Kasrawad), Bala Bachchan (Rajpur), Jitu Patwari (Rau), Priyavrat Singh (Khilchipur) and Narendra Nahta (Manasa).

They served as ministers either during the previous Kamal Nath government or the Digvijaya Singh-led regime of the Congress in the state earlier.

In Bhopal district, the Congress has fielded Manoj Shukla from Narela seat, sitting MLA Arif Masood from Bhopal Central and Jaishri Harikiran from Berasia.

In Indore city, the Congress has given ticket to sitting MLA Sanjay Shukla from Indore-1 seat, where the BJP has fielded its national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya.

The Congress has fielded Chintamani Choukse Chintu from Indore-2 and Raja Mandhwani from Indore-4.

Congress media penalist Charan Singh Sapra, while addressing a press conference in Bhopal, said in the first list, the Congress has fielded 39 candidates from Other Backward Classes (OBCs), 22 from Scheduled Castes (SC) and 30 from Scheduled Tribes (ST).

He said 47 candidates in the list are from the general category, six are minorities and 19 are women.

Sapra said 65 of the 144 candidates in the list are below the age of 50.

State unit chief Kamal Nath urged the people to vote for Congress to ensure establishment of a government of truth and justice in the state.

Reacting to the Congress' list of candidates, MP BJP chief VD Sharma, in a message on X, said it reflected nepotism, crime and oppression of women.

Sharma said the Congress had failed to announce candidates in Chhindwara district, the home turf of Nath, who has been MP and MLA from the are multiple times.

The ruling BJP has so far announced the names of its 136 candidates, including seven Lok Sabha members. These include Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, Prahlad Singh Patel and Faggan Singh Kulaste.

In the 2018 Assembly polls, the Congress won 114 seats in the 230-member House and formed a coalition government under veteran leader Kamal Nath with the support of the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and independent MLAs.

The Nath government, however, collapsed after 15 months when a section of Congress MLAs, most of them loyal to Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, quit the party and joined the BJP. The saffron party returned to power in March 2020 with Shivraj Singh Chouhan taking over as chief minister for a record fourth term.