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Four state ministers make it Congress's MP list

Even as a few senior leaders have opted to change their constituencies, the Congress has introduced 13 new faces in its first list of 33 candidates for the coming Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh.

Five former Union ministers, the state Congress president, three Rajya Sabha members and a legislator were among the 33 party nominees. The names of candidates for remaining seven constituencies will be finalised soon, a party spokesman said.

AICC general secretary Madhavrao Scindia and party spokesman Ajit Jogi will now contest from Guna and Shahdol seats respectively. Scindia has moved from Gwalior while Jogi has left the Raigarh seat, which he had won during the last Lok Sabha polls.

Besides four women, the party has fielded nine tribal candidates, five Scheduled Caste nominees and six candidates belonging to the Other Backward Classes.

In the 1998 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress had won 10 out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

Among the former Union ministers who have been nominated to contest the elections are Madhavrao Scindia (Guna), Kamalnath (Chhindwara), Suresh Pachouri (Bhopal), Motilal Vora (Rajnandgaon) and Vimla Verma (Seoni). Pachouri is at present president of Congress Sewa Dal while Motilal Vora is a former governor of Uttar Pradesh.

State Congress president Radha Kishan Malaviya (Shajapur), Gufran-e-Azam (Betul) and Suresh Pachouri (Bhopal) are the Rajya Sabha members who will contest the Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket while the party has re-nominated all 10 members who had represented it in the dissolved Lok Sabha.

The party has nominated Vimla Verma from Seoni while Chhabila Netam, Pushpa Devi Singh and Madhavi Choudhary will contest from Kanker (ST), Raigarh (ST) and Sagar (SC) constituencies.

Two sitting legislators, Mahendra Karma and Devendra Tekam will be the party nominees for Bastar (ST) and Mandla (ST) constituencies. Besides four former ministers in the Digvijay Singh cabinet -- Satyadev Katare (Bhind), Tanvant Singh Keer (Khandwa), Rajkumar Patel (Hoshangabad) and Jaswant Singh (Vidisha) -- those who are contesting Lok Sabha polls for the first time include Suresh Pachouri, Ramchandra Kosariya (Bilaspur-SC), Tulsi Silawat (Ujjian-SC), Rajendra Singh Gautam (Mandsaur), Tara Chand Patel (Khargone), Dr Somnath Sahu (Raipur), Pradeep Choubey (Durg), Tilak Singh Modi (Damoh) and Madhavi Choudhary (Sagar-SC).

UNI

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