New Delhi: Events in Surat, and then in Indore, while not identical, have played out with similar consequences, resulting in Opposition candidates leaving the fray. In Surat, after the two sets of nominations of candidates associated with the Congress were rejected, all other independent candidates also withdrew from the race.
In Surat, after the dramatic rejection of papers of the Congress candidate(s), including one dummy candidate on a Sunday, all others withdrew, leading to Mukesh Dalal being declared elected Lok Sabha MP unopposed, minus an election, as the first MP of the 18th Lok Sabha.
In Indore, the Congress candidate withdrew and joined the BJP. But information and enquiries made by The Wire have revealed a more sinister sequence of events.
Ajit Singh Panwar, a candidate in Indore representing the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist), and his associates, with whom The Wire spoke, say they were put under pressure allegedly by government officials, individuals claiming to be BJP emissaries, and received hundreds of missed calls from known and unknown numbers, and corporators, targetting candidates.
Put together, they unveil an entire system to try and control candidates. A starting talking point for the “betterment of Indore city” quickly morphs into threats and pressure, to get remaining candidates do as told, and essentially step back from the fray.
The BJP in Madhya Pradesh is yet to respond to our request for comments.
Opposition-mukt?
Persons allegedly associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party threatened, intimidated, and even attempted to cajole the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) candidate from Madhya Pradesh’s Indore Lok Sabha seat, Panwar, to withdraw his nomination, to get BJP nominee Shankar Lalwani elected unopposed.
Speaking with The Wire, Panwar alleged that several persons, including government officials, who are directly or indirectly associated with the BJP, tried to reach him ahead of April 29, 2024, the last date to withdraw nominations in Indore. He said that he kept getting hundreds of calls from known and unknown numbers on April 27 and 28.
“I first received a call on April 27 from a lawyer called Mohar Singh, whom I knew. Singh told me that a former BJP MLA wanted to meet me for something important. I refused. Then a police official from Guna, which is also my hometown, also called to tell me that some top BJP leaders from Indore wanted to meet me to talk about ‘betterment’ of Indore city,” Panwar said.
He said that he quickly realised that something along the lines of Surat may be happening in Indore too, and refused to entertain any such request. Thereafter, he did not receive any calls from unknown numbers, he said. “The police official called again to request me to meet people from the BJP. But I refused,” Panwar said.
Once he stopped picking calls, Panwar said, a BJP corporator from Indore went to the home of one SUCI worker, who had also proposed his nomination, and threatened and intimidated him to officially deny that he had signed Panwar’s nomination papers.
The SUCI worker, who did not want to be named, told The Wire, “The corporator suddenly came to my house, and asked me to accompany him to the collectorate on April 29. He told me that he wanted me to deny that he had proposed Panwar’s name for the Lok Sabha seat. ‘You just come with me to the Collectorate. Our people will handle everything there,’ he told me. By that time I had already known that the Congress candidate Akshay Kanti Bam had withdrawn his nomination and joined the BJP. So I refused.”
“He said that whatever my demands are will be fulfilled. But when I refused, he threatened me with dire consequences. But I am a seasoned political worker. I immediately informed my leaders, following which the corporator backed out,” the proposer said.
Panwar said that “even the old workers of the RSS are slamming such tactics by the BJP in Indore”.
“Indore is one of the safest seats for the BJP. Yet, their leaders are resorting to such vile moves,” Panwar said. He added that when he didn’t take the calls, some BJP workers also reached out to “his election agent in Guna” and asked him to get Panwar to meet some BJP leaders in Indore immediately.
“My agent was told that some top BJP leaders were ready to come down to Guna (around 300 kilometres from Indore), to meet me even in the middle of the night if I agree,” he said.
“Calls from unknown numbers kept coming until about 4.30 pm on April 29. Once the window for withdrawing nominations closed, all the calls suddenly stopped,” Panwar said, adding that “the callers tried to hide their identities but not their intentions.”
“I was told by my informants’ sources that the BJP leaders had convinced 13 independent candidates to withdraw their nominations. But because I refused to budge, they shelved their plan and let the independents remain in the electoral fray,” Panwar told The Wire.
Surat-model did not work
SUCI (Communist) has fielded six candidates in Madhya Pradesh. Sunil Gopal, a member of the party’s state committee secretariat, told The Wire that the BJP workers tried to reach out to several of the SUCI workers in the Indore and Guna regions on April 27 and 28.
“Initially, we did not understand the implications. However, once Congress’s Bam withdrew his nomination, we realised that Panwar is the only candidate from an organised party. The rest were all independents. Now, we are in a direct contest with the BJP,” Gopal said.
Gopal said that when he visited Indore’s Collectorate on April 29, he saw some of the independents protesting against “unlawful rejection of their nomination papers”.
“Our party has come out stronger in the process as even our smallest worker refused to buckle under such pressure. We feel our will to remain in the electoral fray is why Indore will see an election on May 13, 2024,” Gopal said.
Gopal said that his party is planning to file a complaint with the Election Commission of India against the BJP’s use of pressure tactics against other candidates in the fray. “We will try to file our complaint with the ECI soon,” he told The Wire.
The allegations made by SUCI appears to be an encore of what conspired in Surat where the candidacy of Congress’s Nilesh Kumbhani was rejected by the election officer on the last day of withdrawal, after his proposers denied having signed his nomination papers. The BJP then convinced all the other independent candidates in the fray to withdraw their nominations, leading to BJP’s Mukesh Dalal getting elected unopposed.
In Indore, Congress candidate Akshay Kanti Bam withdrew his nomination and joined the BJP on the last date of withdrawal, preventing the Congress from fielding his replacement.
In Indore in 2019, the BJP got over 10 lakh votes, and in Surat, too, the highest percentage of votes in the election. The motivation for having no contest cannot be to secure a victory, say analysts. It may be to use these places to establish how there is no opposition to the BJP at all and further demoralise other parties, they say.
The Wire tried reaching out to more than one BJP spokesperson in Madhya Pradesh but has received no response so far. The story will be updated when we get a response.
A level-playing field, termed “LFP” by ex-Election Commissioner, Ashok Lavasa, is a sine qua non of any democracy. The Model Code of Conduct, clause I(7) reads:
Political parties and candidates shall ensure that their supporters do not create obstructions in or break up meetings and processions organized by other parties. Workers or sympathisers of one political party shall not create disturbances at public meetings organized by another political party by putting questions orally or in writing or by distributing leaflets of their own party. Processions shall not be taken out by one party along places at which meetings are held by another party. Posters issued by one party shall not be removed by workers of another party.
