By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net,
Bhopal: There is just one Muslim in the first list of 117 candidates for the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly elections announced by the All India Congress Committee, (AICC), at New Delhi on Friday and faxed to the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee here at Bhopal in the afternoon.
The lone Muslim Congress candidate is Arif Aqueel who is a sitting member from Bhopal North constituency. He was earlier a minister in the Digvijay Singh ministry. In the last general elections about half a dozen Muslim candidates were given Congress tickets. There is still some hope as a list of 113 candidates have yet to be declared by the AICC.
The total seats in the Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha is 230 which is earlier 320 before Chhattisgarh was carved out from it. The polling for the Vidhan Sabha will be held on November 27.
The list includes several former ministers and senior leaders including the Leader of Congress Opposition in the state Jamuna Devi and former deputy chief minister Subhash Yadav.
While Jamuna Devi has been re-nominated from Kukshi, Yadav will fight from Kasrawad. Ajay Singh, son of Union Minister Arjun Singh who is also chairman of the state campaign committee, has been re-nominated from Churhat. Former assembly speaker Srinivas Tiwari is the party nominee from Sirmour. Hazarilal Raghuvanshi, who is the deputy speaker, has been nominated from Seoni-Malwa.
Among former ministers who have been given ticket include Satyadev Katare, Mahindra Bodh, Raghavendra Singh, Parvatlal Ahirwar and Ratnesh Soloman, brother-in-law of former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi.
Meanwhile, AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh is not contesting the Madhya Pradesh assembly elections.
This became clear with the AICC announcing the list of 117 candidates for the assembly elections.
Raghogarh, which is being represented by Digvijay Singh, is being given to his close associate Mool Singh. Digvijay has created a record in the state for a tenure of ten years as Chief Minister till 2003. ([email protected])