Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls: BJP releases final list of candidates; SP nominee for Pawai gets ticket

A day before the last date of filing nominations for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly election, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its fourth and final list of candidates on Thursday. The list comprised seven names — Prahlad Lodhi from Pawai consituency, Brijendra Singh from Panna, Vijay Uike from Lakhnadon (ST), Prem Shankar Verma from Seoni-Malwa, Fatima Rasul Siddaki from Bhopal Uttar, Bahadur Singh Chauhan from Mahidpur, and Devilal Dhakar from Garoth. The BJP had earlier fielded Brijendra Singh from Pawai. However, the saffron party fielded Lodhi — who had earlier filed nomination as a Samajwadi Party candidate — from Pawai on Thursday, and shifted Brijendra to Panna Assembly constituency. Earlier on Thursday, the party released its third list, featuring 32 candidates for the polls slated for 28 November. With the fourth list, the BJP has released the names for all the seats in the 230-member House. The party denied ticket to former Public Works Department Minister Sartaj Singh, a two-time MLA from Seoni-Malwa seat in the state’s Hoshangabad district. Singh openly wept on Thursday after the party broke the news to him. He later switched over to the Congress , which immediately named him as the Congress nominee for the Hoshangabad Assembly seat in its fifth list of candidates. With inputs from agencies