Congress to discuss list of LS candidates for MP this week

BHOPAL: Congress party is seriously contemplating fielding former chief minister Digvijaya Singh from Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency, which the party has consistently lost since 1989. A meeting will be held in New Delhi to discuss candidates for the general elections on March 2.
Sources in the state Congress said that Digvijaya Singh is the closest the Congress can get to wrest the constituency from the BJP.
“Two sitting ministers from Bhopal are Arif Aqueel and PC Sharma, both known to be loyal to Digvijaya Singh," a state Congress office-bearer said.
But the choice is between Rajgarh and Bhopal, the former being a seat Digvijaya Singh represented in the Lok Sabha during the early 1990s before he became chief minister of the state in December 1993.
Another surprising name that has been recommended for Bhopal is that of Sandeep Dixit, son of former Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit.
Wife of a former minister of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan BJP government could be fielded by the Congress from Khajuraho seat.
Party leaders claimed that the former minister and sitting MLA who shifted allegiance to the BJP in 2014 could return to the party. And his wife is in the fray for Congress ticket from Khajuraho seat.
For Indore, minister for sports and youth affairs Jeetu Patwari still seems to be a popular option.
A senior Congress leader said that Patwari is willing to contest but chief minister Kamal Nath has instructed that no sitting Congress MLA or minister will be fielded for Lok Sabha.
Sources in the party office added that when Jeetu Patwari was denied possible candidature, he asked if his wife Renuka can be fielded.
The other names in the panel for Indore are of Satyanarayan Patel, who has contested several times and lost against Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan, state Congress media cell chief and former Mahila Congress national chairperson Shobha Oza and Archana Jaiswal.
For Gwalior, the most likely candidate to be fielded is Ashok Singh who contested against Union minister for rural development Narendra Singh Tomar in 2014 and was defeated by approximately 26,000 votes.
Congress leaders argued that the margin of Tomar’s victory was not extraordinary despite the Modi-wave of the previous general elections.
For Jabalpur, Rajya Sabha MP and eminent lawyer Vivek Tankha is heading the list, though former MLA Neelesh Awasthi, who lost the November assembly polls, is also being considered a good candidate opposite BJP state president Rakesh Singh.
Home minister of the erstwhile Digvijaya Singh government, Mahendra Boudh is leading in the panel of candidates for Bhind constituency.
Another former minister Rameshwar Neekhra is a prominent name in the list for Hoshangabad, together with former Union minister Suresh Pachauri and former minister of the BJP government who joined Congress in November Sartaj Singh.
Former Youth Congress state president Meenakshi Natarajan is likely to be fielded from Mandsaur for the third time, even though she lost the seat in the last general elections. PWD minister Sajjan Singh Verma’s son is a name in the list for Dewas, while stalwarts former deputy speaker Rajendra Singh and former leader of opposition Ajay Singh are both in the race for Satna constituency.
The only sure names are that of sitting MPs Jyotiraditya Scindia for Guna and Kantilal Bhuria for Ratlam.
Former Union minister Arun Yadav could get fielded from Khandwa, chief minister Kamal Nath’s son Nakul from Chhindwara, while Himadri Singh who lost the bypoll of Shahdol in November 2016 could again emerge as the party’s face for the tribal reserved seat. She lost by a margin of 60,000 votes in the bypoll against BJP’s veteran Gyan Singh.