In the BJP’s list of 195 candidates announced on Saturday, 24 are for the 29 constituencies in Madhya Pradesh. As the party looks to better its stupendous record of winning 28 seats in 2019, it has given tickets to former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia while replacing controversial MP Pragya Singh Thakur in Bhopal with another candidate.

Ms Thakur is one of six sitting MPs who have been denied tickets and 13 sitting MPs have been repeated.

Two-and-a-half months after he stepped down as BJP’s longest-serving chief minister in the country to make way for Mohan Yadav, Mr Chouhan, who has been named the candidate from Vidisha, told NDTV: “I am grateful to the central leadership, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief JP Nadda, Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.”

The former chief minister, who won the seat five times between 1996 and 2005, insisted there were “no ifs” as far as his chances in the upcoming polls were concerned. “I am very close to the people of Vidisha, we are like family. The roadmap for Vidisha is ready. The BJP will win all 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh and the state will put 29 garlands on PM Modi,” he said.

Vidisha is considered one of the BJP’s fortresses in the country and was won by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1991 and former Union Minister Sushma Swaraj in 2009 and 2014.

Union Minister and former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia has been named the candidate from Guna, a seat he had held since 2002 until his loss to the BJP’s Krishna Pal Singh Yadav in 2019.

Loyalists Rewarded

At least four of Mr Chouhan’s loyalists have got tickets. Former Bhopal mayor Alok Sharma (who lost from the Bhopal Uttar seat in last year’s Assembly elections) has been fielded from Bhopal, state Kisan Morcha head Darshan Singh Chaudhary from Hoshangabad and sitting MP Rodmal Nagar from Rajgarh.

Anita Nagar Singh Chouhan, who is the wife of the former chief minister’s loyalist, Nagar Singh Chouhan, has been named the candidate for the Ratlam-Jhabua (ST) seat.

Bharat Singh Kushwah, a loyalist of Assembly Speaker and former Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar, has been given a ticket from the Gwalior seat despite losing the Assembly polls from the Gwalior Rural constituency last year. Two other loyalists of Mr Tomar, sitting MP Sandhya Rai and former MLA Shivmangal Singh Tomar, have been named as candidates from the Bhind (SC) and Morena seats respectively. These constituencies are in the Gwalior-Chambal region.

MPs Denied Tickets

Apart from Ms Thakur, five other sitting MPs have also been denied tickets.

While Jyotiraditya Scindia has got the ticket from Guna in place of KP Singh Yadav, Rajbahadur Singh, the sitting MP from Sagar, has been replaced by former Women’s Commission chairperson Lata Wankhede.

Anita Nagar Singh Chauhan has replaced GS Damor in Ratlam-Jhabua,

Ramakant Bhargava has made way for Shivraj Chouhan, and former minister Bharat Singh Kushwah getting the ticket in Gwalior meant that Vivek Shejwalkar did not.

The 13 sitting MPs who have been fielded again from their seats include Union minister and 3-time MP Virendra Kumar, who will contest from the Tikamgarh-SC seat. Virendra Kumar Khatik, the seniormost sitting MP, has got the Lok Sabha election ticket for the eighth time.

State BJP chief VD Sharma will contest from Khajuraho, Himadri Singh from Shahdol (ST), Ganesh Singh from Satna and six-time MP Faggan Singh Kulaste from Mandla (ST). Both Mr Singh and Mr Kulaste had contested the Assembly polls and lost.

In the list of 24 candidates, eight are from the OBC community, five are Brahmins and four are women.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh are among the 195 candidates to lead the BJP charge in the soon-to-be-held Lok Sabha polls. 

Jyotiraditya Scindia, who moved from Congress to BJP, will contest from Guna. Shivraj Chouhan, the former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, will once again contest from Vidisha. 

Here’s the complete list of 195 candidates:

Smriti Irani will be fighting from Amethi, where she had pulled off a shock victory against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in 2019.

As the BJP released its first list of 195 candidates for Lok Sabha polls, some omissions stood out more than the names that made it to the list. These include firebrand leader Pragya Thakur and sitting MPs from Delhi, Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma and Ramesh Bidhuri.

The three leaders have made headlines for their controversial remarks inside and outside Parliament, and the BJP’s move to drop them sends a message that the party is taking no chances ahead of an election in which it faces a joint Opposition.

In Bhopal, the BJP has replaced Pragya Thakur with Alok Sharma. An accused in the 2008 Malegaon bombings case, the firebrand leader’s nomination last time had sparked a huge row. The five years since then have seen her getting caught in several controversies. Out on bail on health grounds, Ms Thakur has been seen playing kabaddi and attending garba nights. But the controversy that may have harmed her the most is a statement in which she called Nathuram Godse, the man who shot Mahatma Gandhi dead, a “patriot”.

The remark drew a stern response from none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The remarks made about Gandhiji or Nathuram Godse are very bad and very wrong for society. She has sought an apology, but I would never be able to forgive her fully,” he said. Five years on, Ms Thakur has lost her seat.

Ms Thakur was at the centre of another row for her remarks on former Mumbai ATS chief Hemant Karkare, who died during the 2008 terror attacks. She had said he was killed because of her “curse”. Party sources said the firebrand leader was not active in her constituency, and that played a key role in her being dropped.   

A key omission in the BJP list that surprised many was West Delhi MP Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma. A two-time MP and son of former Chief Minister, late Sahib Singh Verma, he is known to have a strong support base. But the 46-year-old leader has been in the news for his inciting remarks.

Ahead of the 2020 Delhi elections, Mr Verma had made controversial remarks during the Shaheen Bagh protest and said the demonstrators would be cleared in an hour if the BJP came to power in the national capital. 

In 2022, Mr Verma hit headlines again, this time for a public boycott call seemingly aimed at Muslims. “Wherever you see them, if you want to fix their head, if you want to set them straight, then the only cure is total boycott. Raise your hand if you agree,” the BJP MP had said.

Going into the 2024 polls, the BJP has its goals clear. It wants to keep the focus on Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Viksit Bharat @2047’ call and does not want its leaders to make statements that serve as fodder for the Opposition and embarrass the ruling party.

Another MP who may have been axed for his remarks is South Delhi MP Ramesh Bidhuri. During a discussion in Lok Sabha in September last year, Mr Bidhuri used Islamophobic slurs for Amroha MP Danish Ali. The derogatory remarks were caught on camera and sparked a huge row. While the South Delhi MP later apologised, the BJP’s first list shows it was not enough.

The other prominent Delhi MPs who have been dropped include Meenakshi Lekhi and Harsh Vardhan. The BJP, which had won every seat in the national capital in the 2019 polls, faces a joint Opposition this time. While the AAP is contesting four seats, the Congress is fighting three. BJP stalwart late Sushma Swaraj’s daughter and lawyer Bansuri has been fielded from New Delhi.

Sources in the BJP said various factors are considered during selection of candidates. “Winnability is very important. Many MPs, it was found, were unpopular in their constituencies,” a party leader said.

“But there is no doubt that leaders such as Pragya Thakur, Ramesh Bidhuri and Parvesh Verma embarrassed the party with their provocative statements. Denial of tickets to them also sends a message that in public life, decorum has to be maintained. In the past, the Prime Minister had warned the party leaders on several occasions that they should not make controversial statements,” the BJP leader added.

A total of 33 sitting MPs have not made it to the BJP’s first list of 195 candidates. Among the big names that have made it to the poll arena are former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Civil Aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia.