Madhya Pradesh assembly elections: The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Friday released its first list of seven candidates for the upcoming Madhya Pradesh assembly elections. By releasing the list of 7 candidates,, the BSP has formally declared its entry into the electoral contest.
State President of Bahujan Samaj Party Ramakant Pippal has officially announced the names of candidates for the Assembly elections on behalf of BSP. According to the state president, the first list of candidates has been issued as per the orders of national president Mayawati.
BSP in this list has announced six candidates from the general category, while one candidate has been declared from the scheduled caste category. BSP has announced two candidates from the Rewa district seat while two are from Satna, one each from Chhatarpur, Niwari and Morena districts.
Names of candidates announced
Mayawati's party has fielded the party’s former MLA Balveer Singh Dandotia from Dimni, in Morena district. The BSP has also fielded Avdesh Pratap Singh Rathore from Niwari assembly constituency, Ramraja Pathak from Rajnagar in Chhatarpur district, Devraj Ahirwar from Raigaon (SC) in Satna district, Maniraj Singh Patel from Rampur Baghelan in Satna, Vishnu Dev Pandey from Sirmour in Rewa and Pankaj Singh from Semaria in Rewa district.
List of candidates
Currently, the party holds two Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) in the Madhya Pradesh assembly – Ram Bai from Pathariya in Damoh district and Sanjeev Singh Kushwaha from Bhind, who later switched to the BJP.
2018 Assembly elections
In the 2018 Madhya Pradesh elections, the Congress won 114 seats in and formed the government. However, in March 2020, the Congress party faced a crisis due to the resignation of 22 Congress MLAs, including Jyotiraditya Scindia, who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), resulting in the collapse of Kamal Nath government’s and the BJP’s return to power after just 15 months. Consequently, on March 23, 2020, Shivraj Singh Chouhan from the BJP took oath as the chief minister.