 "Madhya Pradesh polls: Nitish Kumar's JD(U) announces list of 5 candidates")
Bihar's ruling Janata Dal (United) or JD(U), a key constituent of the Opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), has released the first list of five candidates for upcoming Madhya Pradesh polls after its talks for an alliance with the Congress failed.
The five candidates announced by the JDU are Chandra Pal Yadav (Pichhor), Ram Kunwar Raikwar (Rajnagar), Shiv Narayan Soni (Vijay Raghavgarh), Tol Singh Bhuria (Thandla) and Rameshwar Singla (Petlawad).
JD(U) is the third non-Congress party of the INDIA bloc after the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to announce candidates for the polls.
The JD(U), whose chief Nitish Kumar spearheaded the efforts for the formation of the INDIA bloc after ending his alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2022, contested Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh in 2003, 2008, and 2013 without much success.
BJP reacts to JD(U) 's candidate list
As soon as Nitish Kumar's party fielded its candidates for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, BJP took a sharp jibe at the JD(U) and INDIA bloc.
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"Nitish Kumar's patience is over now because his party is not getting preference in any alliance... No one is asking the party. The Opposition's INDIA bloc has collapsed even before the Lok Sabha elections," BJP state vice president Santosh Pathak said.
No INDIA alliance at the state level
Earlier, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav had expressed disappointment over the INDIA partners' failure to work out a seat-sharing pact in Madhya Pradesh.
He said had he known that there would be no INDIA alliance at the state level, SP representatives would not have gone to Congress with a list for seat sharing. Yadav said his party would contest all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in the 2024 national elections.
The SP has been looking to expand outside Uttar Pradesh to become a national party. It has, since its inception in 1992, been a regional party. The SP registered its biggest success outside Uttar Pradesh in Madhya Pradesh in 2003 when it won seven of the 161 seats it contested.
In the 2018 assembly elections, it contested 52 seats and won one seat. The lone lawmaker has since defected to the ruling BJP.