Key Candidates

Veteran Congress leader PC Sharma is contesting again from Bhopal’s South West seat and has been a former minister in the Kamal Nath government. Sharma has a good image since he worked as a corporater in the Bhopal Municipal Corporation.

The 76-year-old leader of the Congress is fighting again from the Chhindwara assembly constituency, a seat he won in 2019 in a bypoll to become the chief minister. Nath holds the record for being continuously elected as an MP from Chhindwara since 1980 and he became the chief minister of the state for the first time in 2019, albeit only for 15 months before his government was brought down by the BJP. This time, Nath is the clear chief ministerial candidate of the Congress, if the party wins.

Madhya Pradesh’s home minister is contesting again from his sitting seat of Datia and is facing a tough contest. Known for his controversial statements and tough stance, Mishra is a prominent upper-caste face of the BJP and a chief ministerial contender.

Narendra Singh Tomar: The Union agriculture minister is fighting an assembly election after 15 years. The sitting MP from Morena, 66-year-old Tomar is in the fray from Dimni assembly seat that falls in his parliamentary constituency but the BJP has not won this seat since 2008. Being also the chief of the state election committee of the party, Tomar has the onerous responsibility of delivering the 34-seat Gwalior-Chambal region for the BJP.

The former finance minister in the Kamal Nath government is again contesting from his seat of Jabalpur (West) which he has held since 2013. Bhanot is in the running for the deputy CM if the Congress wins and he is making life tough for Rakesh Singh, the BJP MP of Jabalpur who has been fielded against him.

Union minister and MP from Damoh, Prahlad Singh Patel, is also in the fray from the BJP in his home seat of Narsinghpur. Patel is an OBC face of the party who has never fought a state assembly election earlier. BJP denied a ticket to his brother and sitting MLA from Narsinghpur, Jalam Singh Patel, to put up Prahlad Singh Patel in the fight. Given that the last three CMs of the BJP in Madhya Pradesh have been OBCs – Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Babu Lal Gaur and Uma Bharti – Patel is fancying his chances to be CM if the BJP wins.

The young Congress leader is again fighting from his sitting seat of Rau near Indore and was earlier a minister in the Kamal Nath government. Patwari is also a working president of the Congress in Madhya Pradesh and has been rallying the young voters in the state for the Congress.

The four-time chief minister is contesting from his bastion Budhni – a seat he won first in 1990 to enter politics and has represented continuously since 2006 when he became CM. Chouhan, 64, has not been projected as the chief ministerial candidate by the BJP this time but he has run a marathon campaign in the state, reinforcing his position as the most popular leader of the BJP in Madhya Pradesh.

The BJP’s national general secretary, Kailash Vijayvargiya, has also entered the state assembly election battle after the BJP surprisingly gave him a ticket from the Indore-1 seat and denied a ticket to his son and sitting MLA from Indore-3 seat, Akash Vijayvargiya. Kailash, the senior-most leader of the party in Madhya Pradesh if one looks at age (67), has said he was reluctant to fight a state election but will follow the party’s orders. He is up against sitting MLA Sanjay Shukla in a tough contest but Kailash has campaigned aggressively in Indore seats to help his party sweep the region.

BJP’s young candidate from Chhindwara, Bunty Sahu, promises to make it a tough fight for Kamal Nath from this seat. In the 2019 bypoll which Nath won as the chief minister, Sahu polled 44 per cent votes against Nath in his first election and lost by about 25000 votes. This time, Sahu says he is no more a green-horn and can beat Kamal Nath.