The declaration of the lists of candidates of the Congress and the BJP in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday created confusion in the former. While the BJP named recently defected Congress MP Rao Uday Pratap Singh as its candidate for the Hoshangabad constituency, the Congress named Devendra Patel.
This created confusion as there were two Devendra Patels vying for the seat. The first is a former Youth Congress leader who has won elections for the Janpad and the district panchayats. The second is the former Silwani MLA who was elected on the Bharatiya Janshakti Party ticket in 2008.
His party later merged with the BJP, but he joined the Congress before the Assembly election last year after being denied the BJP ticket. He then lost the Assembly election, giving rise to speculation that a role reversal was in the offing in Hoshangabad with defected Congress MP Mr. Uday Pratap Singh of the BJP facing the former BJP MLA Patel of the Congress in the election on April 10.
Several calls went back and forth between New Delhi and Bhopal and Hoshangabad and before midnight, it was clear that the former Youth Congress leader and not the former MLA had got the Congress ticket.
Earlier this month, similar confusion took place when the Samajwadi Party named Rajamani Patel as its candidate from Rewa. Most politicians assumed it was former Congress Minister Rajamani Patel, who insisted that he had not defected. The situation in Rewa is still unclear.
