The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its first list of 39 candidates for the Madhya Pradesh Election 2023 focusing on seats it lost in 2018, some even in 2013. The ruling party reposed faith in 14 candidates, including three former ministers, who lost the previous polls. In a surprise announcement and what is being considered a change of strategy, the BJP released its first set of nominations even before the announcement of the poll schedule. The nominated candidates also include five women.
ABP News and CVoter conducted a snap poll to gauge the opinions of people about the BJP's early candidate list.
When asked whether this decision was right or wrong, 63.2% of respondents who are BJP supporters opined it was the right move, 23.2% felt it was wrong, and 13.6% said they were uncertain. Among the Congress supporters, 32.7% said it was the right decision, relatively more i.e. 44.9% opined it was wrong, and 27.9% said they were unsure.
Among other respondents who are neither actively supporting the BJP nor the Congress, 43.9% said the ruling party was right to declare the first list early, 35.6% felt disagreed, and 20.5% remained indecisive.
By announcing candidates for 39 seats in Madhya Pradesh, has BJP taken an early lead? Half of the BJP supporters who took part in the survey said yes (50.2%), 41.8% disagreed, and 8% of supporters said they were unsure. On the other hand, a majority of Congress supporters denied any edge for the saffron outfit with 73.7% saying there is no advantage, 23.2% opined that the BJP may have got an edge, and 3.2% remained unsure.
Meanwhile, 38.9% of the Others said the BJP got an early lead, 48.1% said that wasn't the case, and 13.0% were uncertain about it.
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In the first list, the BJP nominated Sarla Vijendra Rawat (Sabalgarh), Adal Singh Kansana (Sumawali), Priyanka Meena (Chahoura), Jagannath Singh Raghuvanshi (Chanderi), Veerendra Singh Lambardar (Banda), Kamakhya Pratap Singh (Maharajpur), Lalita Yadav (Chhatarpur), Lakhan Patel (Patharyia), Rajesh Kumar Verma (Gunndaor-SC), Surendra Singh Gaharwar (Chitrakoot), Heersingh Shyam (Pushrajgarh-ST), Dhirendra Singh (Barwara-ST), Neeraj Thakur (Bargi) and Anchal Sonkar (Jabalpur East).
The other candidates include Omprakash Dhurwey (Shahpura-ST), Dr Vijay Anand Marawai (Bichhiya- ST), Bhagat Singh Netam (Baihar-ST), Kamal Maskole (Barghat-ST), Mahendra Nagesh (Gotegaon-SC), Nanabhau Mohod (Saunsar), Prakash Uikey (Pandhurna-ST) and Chandrashekhar Deshmukh (Multai).
Mahendra Singh Chouhan (Bhainsdehi-ST), Rajesh Sonkar (Sonkatch-SC), Rajkumar Mev (Maheshwar-SC), Atmaram Patel (Kasrawad), Nagr Singh Chouhan (Alirajpur-ST), Bhanua Bhuriya (Jhabua ST), Nirmala Bhuriya (Petlawad-ST), Jaydeep Patel (Kukshi ST), Kalu Singh Thakur (Dharampuri-ST), Madhua Verma (Rau,) Tarachand Goyal (Tarana-SC) and Satish Malivya (Ghatiya -SC) were also chosen by the ruling party to contest polls.
Madhya Pradesh has a 230-member House and is set to undergo assembly polls by the year-end.
[Disclaimer: Current survey findings and projections are based on CVoter Pre Poll personal interviews (Face to Face) conducted among 18+ adults statewide, all confirmed voters, details of which are mentioned right below the projections as of today. The data is weighted to the known demographic profile of the States. Sometimes the table figures do not sum to 100 due to the effects of rounding. Our final data file has Socio-Economic profile within +/- 1% of the Demographic profile of the State. We believe this will give the closest possible trends. The sample spread is across all Assembly segments in the poll bound state. MoE is +/- 3% at macro level and +/- 5% at micro level VOTE SHARE projection with 95% Confidence interval.]