Bhopal: The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Wednesday announced its first list of four candidates, all from Bundelkhand and the Gwalior-Chambal belt, for the upcoming assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh.
All four constituencies for which the SP has declared its candidates are located near the Uttar Pradesh border.
Notably, the SP became the third party after the BJP and the BSP to declare candidates even though the schedule for the assembly polls, due later this year, is yet to be announced by the Election Commission.
The SP shared the list on its official ‘X’ handle.
The Akhilesh Yadav-led party has given tickets to former MLA Meera Deepak Yadav from Niwari seat, Brijgopal Patel from Rajnagar, RD Rahul from Bhander (ST) and Brijkishore Singh Gurjar from Mehgaon.
While Niwari, Rajnagar and Bhander segments are in the Bundelkhand region, Mehgaon is a part of the Gwalior-Chambal area.
Notably, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had released a list of 39 candidates and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of seven nominees.
The Bundelkhand region comprises Sagar, Chhatarpur, Tikamgarh, Nimari, Damoh and Panna districts, with 26 assembly constituencies, of which 15 were won by the BJP in the 2018 elections, while the Congress bagged nine and one each was won by Samajwadi Party and BSP.
The Bijawar seat in Chhatarpur district was won by SP candidate Rajesh Shukla but he was later expelled for anti-party activities. Shukla later joined the BJP.
While no party won a clear majority in the 2018 assembly polls in MP, the Congress won a maximum of 114 seats in the 230-member House. The BJP won 109 seats. The Congress formed a coalition government under Kamal Nath with the support of SP, BSP and independent candidates.
However, the Nath government collapsed after 15 months when a section of Congress MLAs, most of them loyal to Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, quit and joined the BJP. The saffron party returned to power in March 2020 with Shivraj Singh Chouhan as chief minister once again.
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