Political fortunes of two former Chief Ministers and a sitting Union Home Minister, and the control of the crucial Gwalior-Chambal region among others, will be at stake when voters from nine seats in Madhya Pradesh choose their Lok Sabha members on May 7.
In phase three of the election in the State, BJP candidate Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who was the State’s longest serving Chief Minister, is returning to his traditional Vidisha constituency after nearly 20 years. Another former Chief Minister, Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh, is contesting from his home turf Rajgarh after 30 years. Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who lost his family seat of Guna as a Congress candidate in 2019, is hoping to regain the constituency on a BJP ticket this time.
Apart from these, Morena, Bhind (SC) and Gwalior seats of the crucial Gwalior-Chambal belt, Bhopal, Sagar, and Betul (ST) will vote on May 7. Betul was originally scheduled to vote in the second phase but the elections were postponed after the death of the Bahujan Sam Party (BSP) candidate.
At present, all the nine seats are held by the ruling BJP, but emerging equations from some constituencies have led observers to believe that the upcoming phase could be the Congress’ best shot in the State. The party has intensified its campaigning for the third phase with Rahul Gandhi holding a rally in Bhind and warning voters that the BJP will “throw away” the Constitution if it returns to power. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi also held a rally in Morena on Thursday, saying that her father and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi did not inherit wealth but the “sense of martyrdom” from her mother Indira Gandhi.
“Modi ji cannot understand the sense of martyrdom,” she said, responding to Mr. Modi’s allegations that Mr. Rajiv had axed the inheritance law when he became Prime Minister to avoid paying tax on the wealth he inherited from his mother.
From the BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, national president J. P. Nadda have campaigned in Morena, Betul and Rajgarh among other places. In a heated address in Rajgarh last month, Mr. Shah had alleged that the Congress, on Mr. Singh’s “advice”, wanted to implement the Muslim personal law and bring Sharia in the country.
Spread across a large portion of the State, the constituencies fall under different regions and have varying demography and issues. While the northern-most Gwalior-Chambal region that shares its borders with Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan is heavily influenced by caste politics, unemployment, poverty and migration linger in the tribal-dominated Betul, that falls down south.
Seasoned campaigners
Mr. Chouhan had vacated the Vidisha constituency in 2005 when he was chosen to lead the BJP’s government in the State. The 65-year-old held the State’s top post until 2023, barring a 15-month period when the Congress was in power from 2018-2020. And even though he was not declared the BJP’s face in 2023 Assembly election, Mr. Chouhan is credited to have defied the anti-incumbency and led the party to a resounding majority. Observers believe that his populist schemes like the Ladli Behna Yojana had a significant role to play in the Assembly poll outcome.
However, Mr. Chouhan, fondly called ‘Mama’, was replaced as Chief Minister with a younger face, Ujjain MLA Mohan Yadav. But now, after a few months of suspense over his future role, Mr. Chouhan is back for a sixth term from Vidisha, a constituency he held from 1991 to 2005. He may be looking to continue his future politics in Delhi as Mr. Modi, at a rally in Betul, said he wanted to take Mr. Chouhan with him. He is facing senior Congress leader Bhanu Pratap Sharma, 77, who represented the seat from 1980-1984. The Opposition party has not won Vidisha seat ever since.
Another stalwart, Mr. Singh is working to reignite his old connect in Rajgarh as he takes on BJP’s two-term MP Rodmal Nagar who is facing a personal anti-incumbency in the area. Mr. Singh, fondly called Raja Saheb, hails from the erstwhile royal family of Rajgarh’s Raghogarh and his family has long enjoyed a dominance in the region as he held the seat for two terms and his brother Laxman Singh held it for five terms including once with the BJP.
Mr. Singh, 77, known for his hold on Congress’ organisation across the State, is using a localised approach to campaign, while also trying to strike an emotional chord declaring that this is his last election. The Congress leader, however, has an uphill task in bridging Mr. Nagar’s 2019 victory margin of 4.31 lakhs as he will look to overcome the BJP’s popularity among OBCs in the constituency and the Hindutva factor.
Next to Rajgarh falls Guna where Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, the scion of the erstwhile Gwalior kingdom and who is referred to as ‘Maharaja’, looks to reclaim his family’s bastion that he had lost in 2019 when he was with the Congress.
This will be Mr. Scindia’s first election since he shifted to the BJP in March 2020, leading a rebellion with 22 MLAs to bring down the Kamal Nath-led Congress government. The BJP fielded him after denying ticket to incumbent MP K. P. Yadav, who had defeated Mr. Scindia last time.
In a replication of BJP’s 2019 strategy, the Congress has fielded Rao Yadvendra Singh Yadav, who had switched sides just before the 2023 Assembly election, hoping to consolidate the Yadav community that has a significant population in the Guna constituency. To ensure his victory, Mr. Scindia’s wife Priyadarshini Raje Scindia and their son Mahanaaryaman Scindia have also hit the grounds.
While Mr. Singh and Mr. Scindia have limited themselves to campaign in their respective constituencies, Mr. Chouhan has also been touring the State to campaign for party candidates as locals in Vidisha say that he appears comfortable in one of BJP’s safest seats in the State.
Battles of Gwalior-Chambal
One of the most keenly watched contest will be from Morena in Chambal belt as the Congress hopes to wrest the seat from BJP after nearly three decades. The party had last won the seat in 1991 and lost it to BJP in 1996. The seat is locked in a three-way fight with the BSP, despite the downward trend in its vote share, continuing to have a significance presence in the area.
The Congress has fielded former BJP MLA Satyapal Singh Sikarwar, who hails from an influential political family of the region. The BJP nominated ex-MLA Shivmangal Singh Tomar, a loyalist of State Assembly Speaker and former Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, who had won the seat in 2019.
Sikarwar and Tomar, both sub-castes of the Thakur community, form the majority electorate in Morena, while OBCs like Gurjar and Kushwaha, are also there in significant numbers. BSP candidate Ramesh Garg, an industrialist, is expected to dent the two sides with the BSP’s traditional supporters and the upper caste voters in urban localities. Morena’s contest has also gotten more intense following the latest defections, including the six-term Congress MLA Ramniwas Rawat’s switch to the BJP.
Bhind (SC) and Gwalior are expected to see the caste equations play a major role in the polls with voters and local BJP leaders admitting that the Congress’ candidate selection has made the contests more intense. In its stronghold Bhopal, the BJP denied ticket to the sitting MP Pragya Singh Thakur and has fielded former city mayor Alok Sharma while the Congress has fielded Arun Shrivastav.
