Former Union minister Kantilal Bhuria fielded by Congress for Jhabua bypoll

BHOPAL: AICC on Wednesday evening announced five times MP and the party’s long-time tribal face Kantilal Bhuria as its candidate for Jhabua assembly seat bypoll. A release from the office of AICC general secretary Mukul Wasnik said that Congress national president Sonia Gandhi has approved the candidature of Kantilal Bhuria for Jhabua tribal reserved seat.
Former Congress MLA from the seat Javier medha lost out in the race with Bhuria.
This will be the first time that Kantilal Bhuria (69) will be contesting the assembly elections. He was elected Lok Sabha MP from Jhabua in 1998, 1999 and 2004. After delimitation, Jhabua ceased to exist and Bhuria won the next Lok Sabha election from Ratlam in 2009.
He was Union minister of state for agriculture, consumer affairs, food and public distribution in the Manmohan Singh, UPA-1 government. In UPA -2 he was Union minister for tribal affairs till July 2011.
In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Bhuria was defeated for the first time by the man he defeated four times – BJP’s veteran Dileep Singh Bhuria. In that election Dileep Singh Bhuria defeated Kantilal Bhuria by a margin of 1,08,447 votes. But in June 2015, Dileep Singh Bhuria passed away after a brief illness necessitating a bypoll in November that year.
Kantilal Bhuria stormed back as MP from Ratlam defeating Dileep Singh Bhuria’s daughter Nirmala who was fielded by the BJP. In the first Lok Sabha bypoll in the country after the 2014 elections, Kantilal Bhuria won by a margin of 88,832 votes. However, this year he lost the Lok Sabha election again to BJP’s GS Damor by a margin of 89,834 votes.