Sagar (Madhya Pradesh)): Ahead of assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, the Sagar assembly constituency has drawn the attention of the people after the announcement of Congress' second list of candidates as a Congress candidate will contest against her brother-in-law (Husband's elder brother) from the seat.
The Congress party has fielded Nidhi Jain from Sagar seat against her brother-in-law and three times MLA from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Shailendra Jain. Congress candidate Nidhi Jain is the wife of Sunil Jain, who is younger brother of BJP candidate Shailendra Jain.
Earlier, during the municipal elections held last year, Congress gave the mayor ticket to Nidhi Jain but she had lost the elections by around 12000 votes to the BJP.
Meanwhile, Shailendra Jain said, "One must have seen our stand in the last civic body elections that at that time also a person from the family had contested the elections and we always followed Raj Dharma. We have considered Bharatiya Janata Party as our mother, so we cannot allow any deceit with the mother, there will be complete justice and every worker is authorised to protect the honour and respect of the party and elections will be fought with full strength." As far as the issue of familism is concerned, we will move away from all these things and follow Raj Dharma, he added.
On the other hand, Nidhi Jain said that it was the fight between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress. It is not the fight of our differences of thought.
"It is the fight between Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress. It is a fight for opposing opinions and not a fight of our differences of thought. We do not have the differences of thought (Manbhed) but we have differences of opinion (Matbhed). The principles of the BJP are being taken forward by the BJP people and we are taking forward the ideology of our party," she said.
With the release of the second list on Thursday late night, the Congress party now announced its all eight candidates for the eight assembly seats in the district. Of these eight seats, the Congress party has fielded four women candidates.
On the other hand, the Congress party has entrusted two other women candidates against the two senior BJP leaders and powerful ministers.
The Congress has landed a two-time district panchayat member Engineer Jyoti Patel in the electoral fray from Rehli assembly constituency against the powerful BJP leader and state PWD Minister Gopal Bhargava, who is going to contest elections for the ninth time.
Notably, according to political commentators, the Kurmi community has a dominant votebank in the Rehali constituency and Jyoti Patel comes from the same community and has in view of which the congress has entrusted her.
Another woman congress candidate Raksha Rajput has been fielded from Khurai constituency against the senior BJP leader and state Urban Development and Housing Minister Bhupendra Singh.
Besides, one more woman Congress candidate Nirmala Sapre has been landed in the fray from Bina (Scheduled Caste reserved) seat in the district. The BJP is yet to announce its candidate for the seat.
So far, with the release of the congress' second list of candidates, the party has now announced 229 names out of 230 assembly seats in the state. While the BJP has only announced 136 seats in its four lists of candidates for the forthcoming assembly polls.
Madhya Pradesh is scheduled to undergo assembly polls on November 17 and the counting of votes will take place on December 3.