MP: Reduced Margins, Congress and SP Defectors' Popularity Mark BJP's By-Poll Victories

Bhopal: In spite of the Bharatiya Janata Party's poor performance in the the by-polls for 29 assembly and three parliamentary seats held across various states, it has won the three assembly seats and one parliamentary seat which it was contesting in Madhya Pradesh. However, this victory has not been a comfortable one, with the party riding on the power of key defectors from opposition parties and suffering a remarkable reduction in its winning margin in a seat.

The voting for three assembly seats – Jobat (ST), Raigaon and Prithvipur – and one parliamentary seat, Khandwa, was held on October 30. All four seats fell vacant after the demise of three sitting MLAs and one MP.

The BJP had held Khandwa and Raigaon while Congress had Jobat and Prithvipur.

With the current mandate, the BJP has managed to retain Khandwa seat and also snatched the two seats of the Congress. While Congress has managed to make its mark in Raigaon after three decades, BJP's victory comes after a period in which it had been drawing public ire thanks to inflation and skyrocketing prices of petrol, diesel and LPG.

In the 230-seat state assembly, the BJP now has 128 MLAs and Congress has 95. Out of the remaining seven seats, two are held by Bahujan Samajwadi Party, one by Samajwadi Party and four by independents.

Also read: Nationwide Bypolls: Who Is Contesting Where and What’s at Stake?

Jobat

In the tribal-dominated Jobat assembly seat of Alirajpur district, BJP witnessed a surprising victory.

Sulochana Rawat. Photo: Twitter

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Congress, which has won Jobat in 2018 assembly elections with a thin margin of 2,056 votes lost its bastion to its own former MLA Sulochana Rawat who defected to the BJP weeks before the by-polls.

After the demise of sitting Congress MLA Kalawanti Bhuriya, who passed away from COVID-19 complications in April 2021, former Congress MLA Rawat had been lobbying for the ticket. When the party chose Mahesh Patel as a by-poll candidate, Rawat switched to the BJP and emerged victorious.

In a close contest, Rawat beat Congress's Mahesh Patel by 6,080 votes, securing 46.92% share, while Patel secured 42.77 % votes.

"Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had alone held seven rallies and also took tribal party workers on helicopter tour," said a local BJP worker, highlighting the pitched campaign the seat saw.

While Congress lost the seat by 6,080 votes, 5,611 votes were polled to NOTA.

Prithvipur

BJP registered another surprising victory in Congress's stronghold Prithvipur assembly seat of Niwari district with a whopping 15,641 votes after pitting Samajwadi Party (SP) defector Sishupal Yadav against the son of deceased Congress MLA Brajendra Singh Rathore.

BJP's candidate Sishupal Yadav who had secured second position in 2018 assembly election on SP's ticket has secured 53.12 % votes against Congress's Nitendra Singh Rathore's 43.04 % votes.

Rathore, a hotel management graduate is a son of former minister and Congress MLA Brajendra Singh Rathore who passed away recently. Brajendra tested positive for COVID-19 when he was in charge of the Damoh by-election of the Congress party which took place in April this year, during the raging second wave. The party won the by-poll.

Khandwa

The saffron party which won the Khandwa parliamentary seat with a margin of over 2.73 lakh votes in 2019 managed to retain the seat in the by-poll but the margin shrunk to 81,500 votes.

Khandwa parliamentary seat fell vacant after the demise of former president of the state BJP and MP Nandkumar Chouhan. Chouhan who had won the Khandwa seat consistently since 1996 had only lost once to Congress's Arun Yadav in 2008. Yadav was a Union minister in the UPA-II government.

Rajnarayan Purni. Photo: Twitter

Yadav, who was considered as an obvious Congress candidate for the Khandwa seat – many senior Congress leaders had congratulated him on Twitter too – withdrew his name from the ticket's race at the last moment citing personal reasons after meeting with senior party leader in New Delhi, including state party president Kamal Nath. The following day, Congress announced three-time former Congress MLA Rajnarayan Purni, who belongs to the Thakur community as candidate.

BJP, instead of giving a ticket to Nandkumar Chouhan's son Harsh Vardhan, chose Zila Panchayat Adhyaksh from Khandwa Gyaneshwar Patil. He secured 49.85 % against Congress's Rajnarayan Singh Purni's 43.38 %.

Admitting the defeat, Arun Yadav thanked voters and tweeted, "The labour and toil of party workers who had been working on the ground for last six months have paid off and we managed to shrink the winning margin. Remaining active on the ground is the need of hour and it will help us to win the 2023-24 elections."

Raigaon

Meanwhile, Congress managed to win BJP's traditional seat Raigaon with a comfortable margin. Congress candidate Kalpana Verma won by a margin of 12,096 votes against BJP's Pratima Bagri. Verma's victory ended Congress's 31-year attempt to wrest Raigaon.

Also read: Bypolls: High Turnout In Most of the 29 Assembly and 3 Lok Sabha Seats

'Miracle'

Speaking to reporters after the victory, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan termed the victory miraculous, especially mentioning Jobat and Prithvipur.

"In the 2018 election in Prithvipur we only got 12,000 votes and secured fourth place. In Jobat which has 90% of tribal voters and BJP was labelled as an "anti-tribal party" and the party had lost the 2019 Lok Sabha seat with a margin of 18,000 votes, we have now won both the seats. It is no less then a miracle, the tribal voters are showing their faith on the BJP."

When the BJP is putting a lot of thrust on such seats after the 2018 poll rout in which lost considerable SC and ST seats, victory in Jobat is important ahead of 2023 assembly elections. In 2018, of 82 reserved seats, it won 34 SC and ST seats. While in 2013 assembly elections, the party had won 59 out of 82 reserved seats.

After losing two of its assembly seats, Congress leaders admitted defeat saying that the party will analyse the loss.

But state Congress media convenor Narendra Saluja pointed out, "Even though we have won only one seat and lost two, but this does not mean that BJP has won these seats. In Jobat, a former Congress MLA emerged victorious. In Prithvipur, a former SP leader won. In Khandwa, where BJP had won the 2019 election with a margin of over 2.7 lakh votes it is now reduced to thousands."

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