Bharatiya Janata Party's chief ministerial candidate in Madhya Pradesh, Uma Bharti, will contest from Bada Malara constituency in the coming assembly election, party general secretary Pramod Mahajan said on Monday.

BJP general secretary Shivraj Singh Chauhan will contest against Chief Minister Digvijay Singh in Raghoghar, Mahajan said.

Releasing the first list of 137 candidates for the December 1 election, he said 58 sitting MLAs have been renominated.

"The people in Raghogarh are very angry with the chief minister and they want a serious candidate who could defeat
him and therefore we decided to field Chauhan against him," said Bharti.

The list was finalised at a meeting of the party's central election committee chaired by president M Venkaiah Naidu at the residence of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

"We came only with single names for each of the constituencies and therefore there was no question of any controversy or anything," Bharti said.

Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani, Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, Finance Minister Jaswant  Singh and state leaders Kailash Joshi and Babulal Gaur also attended the meeting.

Also see: Complete coverage of assembly elections