Congress has announced the names of its candidates for the remaining two Assembly seats in Jabalpur district late night on Thursday. With the announcement, Congress has fielded its candidates for all eight Assembly seats in the district. In the second list, the party has fielded Abhishek Chouksey (Chintu) from Cantt. seat while Rajesh Patel from Panagar Assembly seat. It may be noted that Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee has released its second list of candidates late in the night on Thursday. The list includes the names of 88 candidates. Former Legislative Assembly Speaker N P Prajapati, whose name was initially removed from the first list, has been given a ticket from Gotegaon. Apart from that the announcement of candidates for two remaining constituencies in Jabalpur has also been made. Rajesh Patel has been declared as Congress candidate from Jabalpur Panagar constituency, while Abhishek Chouseky received the ticket from Cantt constituency.

 

Rajesh Patel started his political career with the Youth Congress and has held several positions, including district member, district president and district Panchayat President. Patel will be contesting against the current BJP Legislator Sushil Indu Tiwari from Panagar constituency, who has been a Legislator for two terms. Similarly, Abhishek Chouksey has been the Vice Chairman of Cantt Board continuously from 2009 to 2021. Chouksey will compete against Ashok Rohani, the BJP candidate.

 

Out of the eight Congress candidates, four are current MLAs. The party has given an opportunity to three new faces for the seats it lost in the previous elections. Ekta Thakur has been declared from Sihora, Rajesh Patel from Panagar and Abhishek Chouksey from Cantt. They will contest Assembly elections for the first time. However, after announcement of Rajesh Patel’s ticket from Panagar, voices of opposition have started emerging. Vinod Shrivastava, a Congress leader who was seeking ticket from the constituency, has reportedly resigned from his primary membership of the party. He has also expressed his opposition to the ticket allocation. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is yet to announce names for two Assembly seats i.e. North Central and Sihora.