BJP announces 13 mayoral candidates in MP, no decision on 3 seats

Bhopal, June 14 The BJP in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday announced candidates for mayor elections in 13 out of 16 Municipal Corporations, while the state leadership is yet to reach a consensus on three candidates for Indore, Gwalior and Ratlam.

The announcement of the mayoral candidates was made by the state BJP president V.D. Sharma at the party headquarters in Bhopal on Tuesday. Sharma said that the party will announce the remaining three mayoral candidates soon.

Out of 13 names announced so far, the party has fielded as many as seven women and no Muslim. The party has fielded Malti Rai against the Congress' Vibha Patel for Bhopal which is reserved for OBC (woman). Patel is state president of the MP Congress women wing.

The other mayoral candidates of the BJP are - Jitendra Jamdar (Jabalpur), Mukesh Tatwal (Ujjain), Sangeeta Tiwari (Sagar), Prabodh Vyas (Rewa), Meena Jatav (Morena), Yogesh Tamrakar (Satna), Jyoti Dikshit (Katni), Chandra Prakash Vishvakarma (Singrauli), Amrita Yadav (Khandwa), Madhuri Patel (Burhanpur), Anant Dhurve (Chhindwara) and Geeta Agrawal from Devas.

The names were announced after three days of brainstorming by the party's core committee members including Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, union ministers Jyotiraditya Scindia, Narendra Singh Tomar, state BJP in-charge Murlidhar Rao and state BJP president V.D. Sharma.

Sources told that the core committee of the state leadership was stuck on the name of mayoral candidate from Gwalior Municipal Corporation because both the union ministers Scindia and Tomar are pushing for their loyalists. If sources are to be believed, Chouhan had also discussed this issue with Union Home Minister Amit Shah during a meeting in New Delhi on Monday.

The Congress has already released the names of its mayoral candidates for 15 out of 16 Municipal Corporations.

Elections to the 16 municipal corporations in Madhya Pradesh comprising 884 wards will be held in two phases - on July 6 and July 13. The counting of votes will be held on July 17 and July 18.

The filing of nominations has already started from June 11 and the last date is June 18. The last date for the withdrawal of nominations is June 22.

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