Seven BJP candidates are running for seats in Madhya Pradesh. History indicates a rocky track record

 In Madhya Pradesh, where elections will be held later this year, the BJP has revealed its second list of 39 candidates. Notably, the ruling party chose seven MPs, including Faggan Singh Kulaste, Prahlad Singh Patel, and Narendra Singh Tomar, all of whom are Union Ministers. 

Riti Pathak from Sidhi, Rakesh Singh from Jabalpur (West), Ganesh Singh from Satna, and Udaypratap Singh from Gadarwara are the other four members of the Lok Sabha.

This strategy has been used by the BJP before in assembly elections. Five of the BJP's currently serving Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs ran for office in the West Bengal Assembly elections of 2021. Only two BJP members—Jagannath Sarkar and Nisith Pramanik—were successful in winning seats in the Santipur and Dinhata constituencies. The other candidates, MPs Babul Supriyo, Locket Chatterjee, and Swapan Dasgupta, were defeated.

When the final votes were tallied in Kerala, actor-turned-politician and former Rajya Sabha MP Suresh Gopi, who ran from Thrissur, took third place. Similar to how KJ Alphons, a former Union Minister and Rajya Sabha Member, failed to generate any excitement in the Kanjirappally seat and lost the poll.

Similar to this, in the high-profile Karhal seat of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections of 2022, the BJP pitted Union Minister of State (MoS) SP Singh Baghel against Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav. Baghel was soundly defeated by Akhilesh Yadav. 

Despite being an elected MP and a Union Minister of State, the BJP still permitted Pratima Bhoumik to run in the state elections from Tripura. She ran for office in the Dhanpur Assembly district and was successful.

The BJP has opted to run such a sizable contingent of sitting MPs in any Assembly election for the first time in recent memory. These MPs each represent various Madhya Pradesh regions. The action announces the party's intention to run candidates from different regions, under a collective leadership, in the elections. 

CONGRESS ON THE BJP'S CALENDAR

Former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and president of the Congress state unit Kamal Nath poked fun at the BJP, saying that the ruling party had conceded defeat and had made its "last bet of false hope" in the upcoming Assembly elections.

Kamal Nath posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that "the candidates' list of the BJP, which claims to have crores of party workers, is unquestionably a stamp on the party's internal defeat and refutes the claims of development during the eighteen and a half years of BJP government and more than 15 years of Shivraj's (Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's) rule."

PAST TRENDS OF BJP FIELDING MPs IN ASSEMBLY POLLS

WEST BENGAL: 2021 

KERALA: 2021

UTTAR PRADESH: 2022

TRIPURA: 2023 

CONGRESS ON BJP'S CANDIDATE LIST

The Congressman added that the "white lie" about Madhya Pradesh's progress had been exposed for what it was: false assertions.