Bhopal, Oct 20 (IANS): The All India Congress Committee (AICC) on Sunday announced its candidates for the upcoming by-elections in two Assembly constituencies of Madhya Pradesh, fielding Rajkumar Patel from Budhni and Mukesh Malhotra from Vijaypur.

Veteran Congress leader Rajkumar Patel, who had won Budhni seat in 1993 and 1998 and was a minister in ex-Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh's government, will be contesting the bypolls against BJP's Ramakant Bhargava.

While Mukesh Malhotra, who will be contesting his first election on Congress symbol, will be facing BJP's nominee Ramniwas Rawat, who is the state forest minister in CM Mohan Yadav's cabinet.

Malhotra, who had contested the last elections from Vijaypur as an Independent candidate a couple of times, had joined the Congress during the Lok Sabha election.

Interestingly, Malhotra had joined the Congress few days after the then sitting MLA resigned from the party and joined the BJP.

Notably, Rawat, who is contesting his election on BJP's symbol for the first time, had won Vijaypur seat for the Congress for 6 times between 1990 and 2023.

Budhni is the bastion of BJP veteran Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who represented this seat six times between 1990 and 2023.

The bypoll was necessitated after Shivraj Singh Chouhan was elected as Lok Sabha MP from Vidisha and he resigned from the Assembly.

Four-time former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Chouhan is currently the Union Agriculture Minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet.

In 2023 Assembly elections, Shivraj Singh Chouhan won from Budhni by a margin of more than 1.05 lakh votes against Congress' Vikram 'Mastal' Sharma, a TV actor.

He was elected as an MLA for the first time from Budhni in 1990, however, he had resigned from the state Assembly after winning Lok Sabha by-election from Vidisha in 1991.

His second innings from his home turf began after he replaced Babulal Gaur as Chief Minister in 2005.

Shivraj Singh Chouhan contested by-poll from Budhni in 2006 and since then he won as many as four consecutive Assembly elections until 2023.

The by-election in Vijaypura was necessitated after Rawat, a six-term MLA from Vijaypur, switched to the BJP from the Congress in April, and resigned from his Assembly membership in July.

The two seats are scheduled to go to polls on November 13 while the counting will be held on November 23, as per the Election Commission's announcement.