Nipping factionalism in the bud was one of the reasons behind the BJP rolling out its big guns in Madhya Pradesh. The party has fielded three Union ministers, four MPs, and a national general secretary for an electoral battle that appears close from the get-go. But days after the second list was announced on Monday — 79 candidates out of 230 have been named so far — the rumbles of discontent continue to roil the state unit that is facing anti-incumbency and factionalism. In Sidhi, the party has replaced three-time MLA Kedarnath Shukla with MP Riti Pathak. Shukla lost favour with the party after a man alleged to be his supporter urinated on a tribal man, triggering a political firestorm and saw Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan wash the Adivasi man’s feet as part of a damage-control exercise. Shukla told The Indian Express, “The whole party has been thrown into doubt over this. Riti Pathak has been given a ticket and it shows that the party shows no value to its grassroots workers. I have met over 20,000 people in the past few days and I will soon announce my plans.” The BJP’s former Sidhi district president, Rajesh Mishra, has resigned from various posts over the party’s decision. “I have not left the party but resigned from the various bodies of the BJP in Sidhi. I felt very bad about the decision. But I will continue to work for the BJP as always. It was a protest and the BJP is a democratic party and there is space for dissent,” he said. In Satna, four-time MP Ganesh Singh has been tasked to regain the seat from the Congress. Incumbent MLA Dabbu Siddharth Sukhlal Kushwaha had ended the BJP's winning streak, which had been continuing since 2003, in the last election. Former BJP district vice-president Ratnakar Chaturvedi has quit the party in protest and will contest as an Independent. “I am getting the full support of my area and will contest as an Independent candidate. This strategy doesn't sit well with us. It is our time to contest and they have brought in an MP to contest the election. In the future, he will get his children to contest from here. I have given 15 years of my life to the BJP. I may not win the election, but I will ensure Ganesh Singh loses,” Chaturvedi told The Indian Express. The BJP has also been grappling with infighting between loyalists of Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and BJP old-timers. A series of Scindia loyalists have quit the party in recent months and rejoined Congress. In Maihar, Scindia supporter Shrikant Chaturvedi has been given a ticket, thus angering incumbent MLA Narayan Tripathi who defeated the candidate in 2018. “What kind of joke is this?” Tripathi asked while speaking to Express. “Those who are running the country, our Cabinet ministers who also work on an international level are sent to the state? Will our Cabinet Ministers now do the job of the transfer of district officials such as revenue officers and policemen? Will our state leaders now contest the sarpanch election? This is wrong. What will Kailash ji (Vijayvargiya) do? His son was supposed to contest and now his father will fight elections. Did anyone ask about his pain? You talk about youth politics and are fielding elderly men?” Tripathi has floated the Vindhya Janta Party (VJP) to fight for the separate state of Vindhya Pradesh. “I have not resigned from the BJP. I did not want a ticket from the party. I am deciding whether to contest on a VJP ticket,” he said. In Sheopur, there is dissatisfaction in the party over the candidature of former MLA Durgalal Vijay, who won the 2003 and 2013 elections. But he has also twice lost the seat — in 2008 and 2018. Despite this, the party has expressed its confidence in him. Former district BJP president Radhey Shyam Rawat, who has been associated with the party since 1980, resigned on Thursday blaming the “repeated arbitrariness of senior leaders” for the priority accorded to the “same person for the last 30 years”. “No one from the Meena community has been given a position in the party in Sheopur and a candidate who loses by huge margins has been given a ticket,” Rawat told Express. The candidature of Dr Tej Bahadur Singh in Ujjain’s Nagada-Khachrod constituency is being opposed by the BJP’s district coordinator for its legal branch, Lokendra Mehta, who has quit the party and decided to contest as an Independent. “I have been with the BJP for 25 years and went to every village to propagate the central and state policies and the ideology of Hindutva. They have sidelined grassroots workers and given tickets to chamber politicians. We are not able to understand the strategy of parachuting leaders into Congress strongholds,” said Mehta. Even when the BJP’s first list was announced on August 18, there were voices of discontent in a handful of seats. The chief among them was Mamta Meena from Chachoura, who left the party and joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), angry over the nomination of Priyanka Meena. When asked about the tension within the party over the candidates, BJP state general secretary Bhagwan Das Sabani said, “During elections, every worker thinks that he should be given a ticket. The party has decided on the candidates with the best chances to win. In the BJP, there is not much factionalism. But in such cases, we will try to talk to them, the sangathan will talk to them.”
