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Big winner Kamal Nath back in the fray

Senior Congress leader and former Union minister Kamal Nath tops the list of those candidates who secured impressive margins of more than 100,000 votes in the last Lok Sabha polls and are seeking re-election, this time from Madhya Pradesh.

Though Sushil Chandra Verma (Bharatiya Janata Party) won by a record margin of more than 193,000 votes from Bhopal constituency in the 1998 parliamentary elections, he is not in the fray this time.

Kamal Nath won the Chhindwara seat by a margin of more than 153,000 votes, defeating BJP veteran and party vice-president Sunderlal Patwa, who has now shifted to Hoshangabad constituency.

Both Congress Working Committee member Arjun Singh and former Union minister Sartaj Singh of the BJP, who had contested the Hoshangabad seat in the last elections, do not figure in the electoral arena this time.

Singh defeated Arjun Singh by a margin of 68,981 votes. Seven out of 40 candidates from the state elected to the 12th Lok Sabha won by a margin of more than 100,000 votes. Besides Kamal Nath, Virendra Kumar, Shivraj Singh, Dr Ramkrishna Kusmaria and Uma Bharti (all from the BJP) are set to seek re-election from Sagar, Vidisha, Damoh and Khajuraho constituencies respectively.

Sushil Chandra Verma and Vijayaraje Scindia (both from the BJP), have chosen to keep out of the contest this time. Kamal Nath was the only Congress candidate in the state who secured a victory margin of more than 100,000 votes in the last Lok Sabha polls.

Ajit Jogi (Congress) won the 1998 poll by the lowest margin ever -- 4,382 votes. He has now moved to Shahdol constituency. Parasram Bharadwaj (Congress), who is seeking re-election from Sarangarh, won the last election by a margin of 6,387 votes.

The margin of victory for the 12 members of the dissolved Lok Sabha varied from 50,000 to 100,000. Of them, nine belonged to the BJP and three to the Congress. Among the Congress candidates, former state chief minister Motilal Vora, Kantilal Bhuria and Laxman Singh are seeking re-election from Rajnadgaon, Jhabua and Rajgarh respectively.

Of the nine BJP candidates, Baburao Paranjpe and Sartaj Singh are not in the fray while Dr Ramlakhan Singh (Bhind), Dr Satya Narayan Jatia (Ujjain), Ramesh Bais (Raipur), Chandramani Tripathi (Rewa), Tarachand Sahu (Durg), Ashok Chhabiram (Morena) and Sohan Potai (Kanker) are seeking re-election.

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