Madhya Pradesh Assembly Polls 2023: Congress’s first list of candidates expected on October 15

Congress will announce its first list of candidates for Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls on Sunday, the first day of Navaratri, with the Central Election Committee looking at a list of winnable candidates to oust the BJP from power and ensure that there is no repeat of March 2020 when a group of MLAs deserted.

Party chief Mallikarjun Kharge chaired the CEC meeting with leaders with Rahul Gandhi, Randeep Surjewala and Kamal Nath among others present. The party has discussed candidates for around 60 out of 230 seats so far and the party hopes to come up with its first list on Sunday. More meetings of the state Screening Committee and CEC will follow in the coming days.

"We will announce our list soon. We are working on that details, so that we can announce our list on October 15. The more discussion the better, because a lot of new things emerge," Kamal Nath, Congress Madhya Pradesh president, told reporters after the meeting.

Congress has already started the election campaign fielding Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in the past three days and announcing guarantees, including free education till Class XII with scholarships. It has so far announced a dozen 'guarantees' ahead of the polls, taking a leaf out of its Karnataka play-book.

The party is also banking on anti-incumbency and internal fight within the BJP as well as the ambiguity over Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's continuance as well as who will emerge as the face for the saffron camp. Leaders like Narendra Tomar and Jyotiraditya Scindia will try to place themselves for the top post in the state while Congress is banking on Kamal Nath.

At the same time, the party also does not want a repeat of March 2020 when MLAs owing allegiance to Scindia quit the party and joined the BJP, leaving Kamal Nath government in minority.

Referring to the BJP allegation that its free education plank is a false promise, Kamal Nath hit back saying people of Madhya Pradesh have understood that all the 20,000 false announcements made by the BJP were not fulfilled. "People are upset with them. People are tired of BJP's false promises and now in the next 23 days, people are waiting for relief," he said.

Surjewala, who is party in-charge in Madhya Pradesh, said that at the CEC meeting, many seats were discussed and very positive discussions were held in an atmosphere of great cordiality. "The way the State Congress Committee President is coordinating, this in itself shows that the Congress is moving towards an unexpected victory in Madhya Pradesh," he said.

"Corruption, scams and such controversies are coming to light every day in Madhya Pradesh. Even today a tribal scam of Rs 10 crore has come to light in Madhya Pradesh. The budget of the tribals of Madhya Pradesh has been eaten away, the BJP has eaten up crores of rupees. We are not saying this, their audit reports which have been released today are saying this. In Madhya Pradesh, political people of BJP and their officials were embezzling crores of rupees from the budget of tribals by making fake bills," he alleged.