MADHYA PRADESH ELECTIONS As campaigning ended on Tuesday for the ten constituencies going to polls in Thursday’s second phase of polling in Madhya Pradesh, there was hardly any major change visible. A stringent election code, rising temperatures and the poll fatigue had already kept the campaign muted in most parts of the state. Four sitting MPs, two former MPs and 11 new faces are among 142 candidates in fray for this phase.
Though the focus will be on the five seats of the Gwalior-Chambal region, in which the BJP is targeting to counter the influence of Jyotiraditya Scindia, the others will keenly watched for the change in the voters' mood after the assembly elections. The BJP had swamped the Congress just four months ago to retain power in the state.
All eyes are on Guna where the Union Minister for Energy Jyotiraditya Scindia is facing firebrand BJP leader Jaibhan Singh Pawaiya. Scindia’s wife and son have also actively participated in the campaign this time round. Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan has staked his reputation on the campaign.
The other keen contests in the region will be at Bhind, Morena and Gwalior and Rajgarh. Four seats in Bundelkhand region Tikamgarh, Sagar, Khajuraho and Damoh are in the news for the factional fights in the BJP. But that doesn't give the Congress an automatic advantage as that party has also been hit by internal troubles.
In the state capital of Bhopal, an old Congress party hand, PC Sharma, is in the fray against lesser known BJP candidate Alok Sanjar. Sanjar emerged from nowhere after the drama over LK Advani’s candidature. Sanjar’s campaign shows he is hoping to make the most of the support for Narendra Modi. Stars like Advani, former chief ministers Kailash Joshi and Sunderlal Patwa stayed away from campaigning for him, but Chief Minister Chouhan did campaign for Sanjar almost every day.
The BJP has the advantage of having won six of the seven assembly segments. Sharma however, doesn’t seem to have the support of his own party members. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who was to campaign here, never turned up. The BJP also did not anticipate the resentment it has faced in the party while denying tickets to incumbent MPs or their representatives in Sagar and Bhind. In Sagar, the BJP had asked current MP Bhupendra Singh Thakur to quit and contest assembly elections.
On his victory he was made a minister. Thakur wanted his wife to contest from Sagar on a BJP ticket. But when the party rejected his request, he stayed away from the party's campaign. Another minister, Gopal Bhargav, was also lobbying for his son to contest from Sagar. The party leaders have had to cajole Bhargav to endorse the party too, but his campaign has lacked enthusiasm. The BJP has finally fielded Lakshminarayan Yadav from Sagar who changed several parties in the past ten years.
Yadav's finding the going tough against Govind Rajput, a dynamic Congress candidate backed by all the factions in the party. In Bhind the BJP has fielded Bhagirath Prasad who spurned the Congress ticket and defected to its fold. The sitting MP, Ashok Argal, kept away from the campaign after being ignored. Congress candidate Imarti Devi, an MLA from Dabra has steadily made the contest tougher for Prasad.
The presence of a BSP candidate only makes the contest more interesting. State BJP president Narendra Singh Tomar, who switched from Morena to Gwalior, has ruffled the feathers of some party colleagues with the change. However, Gwalior has become a matter of prestige with the BJP going all out for Tomar. Scindia and Rahul Gandhi have cast their weight behind the Congress candidate Ashok Singh, who has contested the seat unsuccessfully twice.
The BJP fielded Anup Mishra, a nephew of Atal Bihari Vajpayee from Morena. Mishra who was a former minister had lost the assembly election and his nomination for the Lok Sabha has come as a surprise. He faces Govind Singh from Congress who had earlier contested from Bhind. Another key candidate from the BJP is former union minister Prahlad Singh Patel.
He had quit the party and joined Uma Bharti’s Bhartiya Jan Shakti Dal. He won the parliament elections twice and lost twice in the past 20 years. He faces a keen contest from Mahendra Pratap Singh of the Congress in Damoh. In Rajgarh’s the battle for the seat is all about Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh cementing his reputation as a local leader.
Ironically Singh had to campaign for Narayan Singh Amlabe against his brother Laxman Singh in the last elections, who had switched to the BJP at the time. Now Laxman Singh is contesting on a Congress ticket against leader of the opposition Sushma Swaraj in Vidisha. With most assembly segments in the constituency having gone to BJP the Congress has a tough task ahead in Rajgarh.
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