6 sitting MPs dropped, more likely: A look at BJP reshuffle in Madhya Pradesh

Controversial statements made by her on Nathuram Godse are believed to have cost Pragya Thakur a repeat ticket from her Bhopal Lok Sabha seat, while the need to accommodate heavyweight leaders like former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia meant the BJP ended up dropping five more sitting MPs from Madhya Pradesh.

The BJP has announced candidates for 24 of the 29 Lok Sabha seats in the state, having won all but one last time. The MPs who have not been repeated include Pragya (Bhopal), K P Yadav (Guna), Rajbahadur Singh (Sagar), J S Damor (Ratlam), Ramakant Bhargava (Vidisha) and Vivek Shejwalkar (Gwalior).

The five remaining seats – Morena, Sidhi, Hoshangabad, Jabalpur and Damoh – are also expected to feature new candidates as their incumbent MPs contested and won the 2023 elections to the state Assembly. (Though the BJP’s Lok Sabha list also includes three leaders who won the Assembly elections.)

While Pragya had apologised following the outrage that followed her reference to Godse, who shot Mahatma Gandhi, as “a patriot”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said in an interview to a TV channel ahead of the last phase of voting in the 2019 general elections that he would never be able to forgive her.

“The statements that have been made about Gandhiji or Nathuram Godse are very bad and very wrong for society. Although she has sought an apology, I would never be able to forgive her completely,” PM Modi had said.

Apart from the row, BJP insiders said, Pragya, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, was also denied a ticket due to her lack of connect with voters and “bad performance”. “She refused to listen to most BJP leaders and was alienated from them. Ever since she won, she has been