The Congress on Monday said it will field former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s niece Karuna Shukla against Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, in his Rajnandgaon constituency, during the Assembly elections in the state. Vajpayee died on August 16 after a prolonged illness.

Assembly elections will be held in the state in two phases on November 12 and November 20. The Congress announced Shukla’s candidature along with those of five others, for six of the 18 seats in which polling will be held on November 12. It had earlier announced the names of 12 candidates for the remaining seats.

Shukla is a former Bharatiya Janata Party MP who quit the saffron party in 2013, after accusing it of torturing her mentally. She then joined the Congress in 2014 and contested the Lok Sabha elections from Bilaspur, but lost.

Shukla had also accused the BJP of politicising Vajpayee’s death. “The way BJP is carrying the ashes of Atal Bihari Vajpayee around the country, it is a show off and for votes,” she had told the news channel in August. “Raman Singh and his cabinet never remembered him until now, especially when he had created the state.”