The Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh will end today (Monday). Out of the total 29 constituencies, the election will be held today for finally 8 constituencies. Both the BJP-Congress parties are engaged in intensive vote gathering, with senior leaders and key executives leaving the Congress, Congress is putting a twist on BJP’s game plan to win all 29 parliamentary constituencies in the state. It has concentrated its strength in a few constituencies.
Hindi states have been a stronghold for the BJP for decades – it won 163 of the 224 state elections in December. However, the decrease in voter turnout in the first two phases of the Lok Sabha elections has caused concern. .
“A central BJP committee analyzed the data and found that women voters, beneficiaries of the Ladli Behna scheme, did not turn out in large numbers in the first two phases as they did during the assembly elections. Many workers did not campaign with full force.
“The party had to be shaken up to prevent the central leadership from being overconfident in many places,” said a senior BJP leader. Women welfare beneficiaries and among them the positive image of former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is said to have helped the party register a huge assembly election victory.
In a few constituencies, BJP’s chances of victory are not bright due to opposition against sitting MPs. In Rajgarh, for instance, Rodmal Nagar, a two-time MP against former Congress chief minister Digvijaya Singh, is facing stiff opposition within his own party. During the campaign, Nagar relied heavily on the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Also, candidates like Union Minister Phakan Singh Kulaste (Mandla), Ganesh Singh (Satna), Alok Sharma (Bhopal), and Bharat Singh Kushwa (Gwalior) who lost in the state elections were selected for the Lok Sabha battle.
Congress strategy
The Congress hopes to gain from these seats, a Congress leader said, “This time we are not spreading the party machine too thin, hoping to win only a few seats.”
The Congress has been trying to stem the exodus of three of its MLAs and its Lok Sabha candidate from Indore, Akshay Gandhi Bam, who walked out along with thousands of party workers. Ever since Bam jumped ship to join the BJP, the Congress has been campaigning for NOTA in Indore, pasting posters on walls and auto-rickshaws, organizing torchlight rallies and rallies and holding social media chats to voters to teach the BJP a lesson. .
The BJP claimed it had absorbed “over 5 lakh Congress leaders”, a move denied by the Congress as a “tactic to destabilize its cadre”.
The BJP has its eyes on former chief minister Kamal Nath’s stronghold of Sindwara, where his son Nakul Nath is trying to win a second term. The BJP has brought into its fold over 2,000 leaders, including Amarwara MLA Kamleshwar Shah, in the hope of undermining tribal support for the Congress, even as Nakul loyalists assume they will win this time too.
In the northern parts of the state, Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia hopes to reclaim his family seat of Guna. Scindia hopes Yadav voters who defected from his camp will come back with Chief Minister Mohan Yadav batting for him in Guna.
What hinders the Congress is a fragile organization damaged by resignations, lack of funds and lack of strong alternatives to “Modi guarantees”. All this created a stir in the Congress campaign in the state, especially in the BJP strongholds of Bundelkhand, Vindhya, Malwa-Nimar and Bhopal-Narmadapuram.
In the Gwalior-Sambal region, where the Congress is eyeing its chances, the entry of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has created a headache for the Congress, with the Mayawati-led party choosing Congress Turnover as its candidate. They can split the votes and eventually turn the tide in BJP’s favour.
