New Delhi: The BJP on Thursday released its first list of 177 candidates for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, fielding Chief Minister Shivraj Chauhan from the Budhni seat.
The list was released by the party's secretary election committee and Union minister J P Nadda on Friday.
The party also announced candidates for 28 assembly seats in Telangana and 24 in Mizoram.
According to sources, about 27 sitting MLAs have been dropped in Madhya Pradesh.
The list was finalised at the BJP's central election committee meeting Thursday night that was chaired by party president Amit Shah and attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi among others.
Cong's ticket allotment
Senior Congress leaders have been entrusted with the task of sorting out differences between party leaders from Madhya Pradesh over allotment of tickets for the November 28 assembly elections as talks at the central election committee meeting remained inconclusive, sources said.
According to the sources, during the meeting of the central election committee on late Wednesday, Congress leaders Digvijaya Singh and Jyotiraditya Scindia exchanged heated notes in the presence of party chief Rahul Gandhi.
The CEC meeting for Madhya Pradesh remained inconclusive after it continued till hours beyond midnight.
This was followed by a meeting of the leaders from Madhya Pradesh and the central screening committee of the state chaired by Madhusudan Mistry with Ahmed Patel, Ashok Gehlot and M Veerappa Moily.
While batting for their respective candidates, Scindia and Singh exchanged heated notes, the sources said.
This forced Gandhi to ask Patel, Gehlot and Moily to sit with the "warring" leaders and resolve the differences, they said.
"The senior leaders have also been asked to first evolve a consensus among the various factions of Madhya Pradesh Congress and hold the next meeting," a senior leaders told PTI.
The process of nominations for Madhya Pradesh started on Friday with the issue of gazette notification.
Asked about the issue, AICC general secretary Gehlot denied reports of any differences between the leaders and claimed that the party leadership in Madhya Pradesh was united.
Singh also rejected reports about any differences with Scindia or any argument with him in Gandhi's presence.
"It is being wrongly reported in press that I and Jyotiraditya Scindia ji had any argument and Rahul ji had to intervene. All of us in MP Congress are one and determined to defeat the corrupt BJP Government in MP," he said.
