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Three women among BJP's fighters from MP

The Bharatiya Janata Party has introduced seven new faces, re-nominated all Union ministers and replaced four members of the dissolved House in its first list of 27 candidates for the coming Lok Sabha election in Madhya Pradesh.

Union Labour Minister Satya Narain Jatia, Union Minister of State for Sports and Youth Welfare Uma Bharati and Union Minister of State for Steel and Mines Ramesh Bais have been re-nominated to contest the Ujjain (SC), Khajuraho and Raipur seats respectively.

The party nominated sitting legislator Deshraj Singh Yadav to contest from the Guna constituency, represented by veteran leader Vijayraje Scindia. She had opted out because of ill-health.

As another party veteran Baburao Paranjape also bowed out citing the same reason, Jayashree banerjee, a former legislator, has been fielded from the Jabalpur constituency. The party had denied the ticket to Banerjee for the assembly election held in November last year

The BJP denied tickets to Gyan Singh and Jagannath Singh, both members of the dissolved Lok Sabha, to accommodate the leaders who had deserted the Janata Dal. Thus, Dalpat Singh Paraste and former legislator Chandra Pratap Singh will be the candidates for Shahdol (ST) and Sidhi (ST) seats.

Besides three women, six candidates belonging to the scheduled tribes, four to scheduled castes and eight members of the other backward classes are in the first list. The list includes one sitting and four former legislators.

Although BJP national general secretary Sumitra Mahajan had announced earlier that she would not contest, the party high command has re-nominated her from Indore, from where she had won the last four elections. The other two woman candidates are Uma Bharati (Khajuraho) and Jayasri (Jabalpur).

The names of state unit general secretary and member of the dissolved Lok Sabha Shivraj Singh Chouhan and state secretary Raman Singh also figure in the list. Three defeated candidates of the last Lok Sabha election - Ashok Sharma, Manharan Lal Pandey and Prahlad Patel - were denied tickets from Rajnadgaon, Janjgir and Seoni constituencies respectively.

Three candidtes who tasted defeat in the 1998 poll have been fielded this time -- from Gwalior, Jhabua and Sarangarh constituencies. Former Bajrang Dal president Jai Bhan Singh Pavaiya will be in the fray from Gwalior while National Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Commission chairman Dilip Singh Bhuria will try his luck again from Jhabua (ST) constituency. P R Khute had been fielded again from Sarangarh (SC).

The members nominated from the dissolved House are: Ram Lakhan Singh (Bhind), Virendra Kumar (sagar-sc), Uma Bharati (Khajuraho), Ram Krishna Kusumaria (Damoh), Ramanand Singh (Satna), Chandra Mani Tripathi (Rewa), Larang Sai (Sarguja-ST), Punnulal Mohile (Bilaspur-SC), Ramesh Bais (Raipur), Chandra Shekhar Sahu (Mahasamund), Vijay Khandelwal (Betul), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Vidisha), Nand Kumar Chouhan (Khandwa), Sumitra Mahajan (Indore), Dr Satya Naraian Jatia (Ujjain-SC) and Faggan Singh Kulaste (Mandla-ST).

The remaining 13 candidates are expected to be named shortly.

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