Indore: The Anatomy of a Defection

Bhopal: In hindsight, the sensational withdrawal of the nomination by the Indore Congress candidate Akshay Kanti Bam should not be a surprise. His betrayal of the Congress hours before the deadline for withdrawal of nomination papers in Indore is an explosive manifestation of the BJP’s nervousness in the face of unexpectedly low voting in the first two phases (April 19 and 26) of the Lok Sabha election in Madhya Pradesh.

Here is what happened.

Amit Shah’s warning

Upset over the 6% fall in voting in the first phase of the election for six seats, Union home minister Amit Shah is learned to have held a meeting of BJP leaders in Bhopal on April 25, a day before the second phase of voting. He apparently warned the ministers that they would lose their jobs if voting percentage decreased in their respective assembly segment. The warning, however, had no effect on voting the next day, as it plunged further by 8% from the 2019 polls for seven seats.

Of the dozen ministers whose constituencies were covered in the two phases of polling, six had had lower voting than the previous Lok Sabha election in their assembly segments.

More worryingly for the BJP, the women voter turnout dipped as low as 14% in some constituencies. The party is banking heavily on women voters who are believed to have played a crucial role in the BJP’s stunning victory in the 2023 assembly election, largely due to its Ladli Behana Yojana that promises a sum of Rs 1000 per month to nearly one crore 20 lakh eligible beneficiaries.

Vijayvargiya’s operation

Unsurprisingly, the lower turnout rang alarm bells for the ministers whose constituencies are slated for polling in the next two phases – on May 7 and May 13. They felt the need to figure out how to escape Shah’s stern purgatory.

Shah’s close confidante and the state’s urban development minister Kailash Vijayvargiya, it is learned, then hit upon an idea to do something “spectacular”.

After years in West Bengal as the BJP’s general secretary of Bengal, Vijayvargiya zeroed in on the Congress candidate Akshay Kanti Bam in his own political backyard of Indore.

Vulnerable Bam

Of all the 28 Congress candidates in the fray in Madhya Pradesh, Akshay Kanti Bam clearly appeared most vulnerable to the BJP’s strong-arm tactics. He runs three major educational institutes in Indore. He is a neophyte politician having no experience of electoral politics. His penchant for religious functions in Indore qualifies him for a role in BJP. He loves to flaunt his riches, and most crucially, has a criminal case pending against him since 2007 in an Indore court.

The court case was considered a clincher for the operation to oust Bam from the race.

Attempt to murder section added

On April 24, the day Bam filed his nomination, a district court framed charges against him and his father, Kantilal, under the Indian Penal Code’s Section 307 (attempt to murder), which carries a 10-year prison sentence if convicted, in a land dispute case. Bam and his father were summoned to appear in court on May 10.

During the scrutiny of nomination papers, the BJP’s legal cell had raised an objection on the fact that Bam’s nomination papers had not mentioned the addition of the ‘attempt to murder’ charge, but poll officials overruled the objection as the charge was added on the day he filed his papers.

According to the court order in which the ‘attempt to murder’ charge was added, the accused persons, including Bam and his father, had on October 4, 2017 “assaulted the complainant’s labourers, set fire to a soybean crop, used criminal force and instructed to open fire at the complainant”.

While BJP leaders said Bam switched over after being inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s guarantees, Congress leaders said the BJP had been putting pressure on him for some time.

A Congress leader said Bam was also unhappy over increasing election expenses. “There are around 2,500 polling booths, and at the last minute, the expenses began rising,” the leader said.

Dangling sword

Failure to get Bam’s nomination cancelled did not deter Vijayvargiya’s operation. Immediate arrest lay on the horizon of the Congress candidate, who is scheduled to appeal in the court on May 10 in connection with the case. Vijayvargiya’s closest ally and Indore MLA Ramesh Mendola remained in contact with the beleaguered Bam. Eventually, the Congress candidate capitulated to the BJP on April 29.

Congress men and women did not have the foggiest of idea of what their candidate was up to. Bam had been campaigning in Indore until the night of April 28 and had even spoken to some Congress workers at 7 am on April 29. A few hours later, he went to the collector’s office, in a vehicle, accompanied by Vijayvargiya and Mendola.

When photographs of him with Vijayvargiya started circulating on social media later in the day, Congress leaders rushed to Bam’s residence, where they found a police contingent outside and the Congress flags missing. While Congress leaders fumed over their candidate’s betrayal, the BJP gloated.

Narrowed options 

The unsavoury Indore is also a grim reminder of the Congress’s severely narrowed options when it comes to candidate selection.

Given his background, the Congress should not have chosen Bam for the Indore seat. Many Congress leaders including those aspiring for tickets were shocked when his candidature was announced. However, party insiders tell this reporter that the Congress had no option but to look for a candidate who is rich enough to bear the poll expenses.

Indore is the sprawling commercial capital of Madhya Pradesh where any election can be very expensive – be it local body, assembly or parliamentary. In the past too, the Congress had opted for millionaires to contest from this seat. But most of them who made their fortunes in the Congress regime through real estate or industry or educational institutions, have switched over to the BJP to protect their commercial interests.

The latest among them are Sanjay Shukla and Pankaj Sanghvi, both Congress candidates who were defeated in earlier Lok Sabha elections.

BJP’s impregnable fortress

Indore is a veritably impregnable BJP bastion where the Congress has been defeated with huge margins since the 1989 Lok Sabha elections. Its sitting MP, Shankar Lalwani, won the 2019 election by a margin of over five lakh votes, despite the fact that he had little personal political clout.

Bam had come in contact with Congress veteran Kamal Nath when the latter was the chief minister.

In a function at Indore, Nath as chief minister had felicitated Akshay as an “icon of Indore” for his contribution to the education sector. Bam then sought a Congress ticket for the assembly election but was asked by top state Congress leaders to wait for the parliamentary polls. Newly elected state Congress chief Jitu Patwari, who replaced Kamal Nath in the aftermath of the assembly election debacle, is well acquainted with Bam. Both are from Indore.

Patwari’s strong recommendation smoothened the path for Bam, it is learned. State stalwarts Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh also backed the untested politician.

From the day his candidature was announced in march, the Congress candidate – with seemingly no dearth of funds – had been vigorously campaigning. This is also why Congress was taken by surprise by his move.

Also read: Dwindling Voter Turnout Shows Discontent and Political Apathy in 2nd Phase of Lok Sabha Polls

Pyrrhic victory

Having made Shankar Lalwani’s passage to Lok Sabha smoother, the BJP’s victory could be a pyrrhic one.

Of the 29 seats, 15 are still to go to polls in the next two rounds. A sizeable section of hardcore BJP and RSS volunteers are already unhappy with this open-armed welcome policy of Congress leaders into the party.

The low turnout in the two phases is being largely attributed to the apathy of BJP and RSS workers. The Indore episode is expected to add to their anguish.

It is noteworthy that the BJP’s high decibel and extravagant campaign has failed to arouse much interest in the voters. The festive atmosphere that used to mark BJP campaigns in the previous elections is conspicuously missing.

RSS mouthpiece sceptical

The BJP may have put a positive spin to the lower turnout in public but internally it is said to be rattled. A sizeable section of the party is said to be surmising whether the BJP’s open- arm policy to Congress defectors might have proved counterproductive. The BJP’s nervousness has reflected in the two analytical articles in its unofficial mouthpiece and RSS-owned paper, Swadesh. Two political commentators, Jairam Shukla and Atul Tare, have speculated in their analyses that mass exodus from the BJP to the Congress might have annoyed the party’s hardcore supporters to the extent that they stayed away from voting.

Alarmed over low voting in the first phase and party workers’ lack of enthusiasm, the BJP has redoubled its efforts to mobilise voters. The party leaders have cautioned cadres, particularly the RSS volunteers, to shun overconfidence. They are being told that the twin icons of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the deity Ram alone would not fetch votes for the BJP unless they are motivated enough to bring the voters to the polling booths.