Ahead of chairman elections in urban bodies, MP BJP grapples with a Congress problem: Factionalism

While the BJP narrowly won the Gwalior municipal corporation and the Dabra municipality (in the Chambal region), in a major loss of face, the party lost the key mayoral seat in both the urban bodies to the Congress. The party is now desperate to win the chairman elections, and each of the factions desperate to get its candidate in.

In the recently concluded local body elections to the 30 wards in Dabra, the BJP won 14 and the Congress 10, while four wards were won by Independent candidates and another two by the AAP.

Of the 66 wards in Gwalior corporation, the BJP won 34, Congress got 25, while seven were won by others. But the party lost the crucial mayoral seat to Shobha Sikharwar of the Congress. Shobha is the wife of Congress MLA Satish Sikarwar, who quit the BJP ahead of the bypolls in November 2020, upset over Scindia’s entry into the BJP.

Now, with elections to the post of chairman being held – Dabra voted on Thursday, August 4, and Gwalior a day later – each of these factions in the party is trying to put up its own candidate for the post. Unlike the mayoral elections, chairpersons are elected indirectly, by the MLAs, and the BJP has the tough task of ensuring that corporators belonging to different factions don’t cross-vote in favour of other parties just to pull down the rival group within the party.

BJP sources attribute the party’s defeat in Gwalior to the growing differences between workers of Scindia and Tomar. They pointed out that during the Gwalior mayoral election, BJP candidate Suman Sharma lost to the Congress by a margin of 28,805 votes. Of these, she lost 19,500 votes from Gwalior East, another 5,500 votes from Gwalior and nearly 2,700 votes from Gwalior South – seats that are currently, or in the recent past were, represented in the Assembly by Scindia loyalists.

Fearing cross-voting, the BJP has shifted 34 of its elected corporators from Gwalior to a hotel in Haryana three days before the chairman election. They are also expected to meet Scindia and Tomar in Delhi before they return to Gwalior to cast their votes on August 5.

Forty-four km away, in the Dabra municipality, Laxmi Bai Puran Singh, a candidate backed by Woman and Child Development Minister and Scindia loyalist Imarti Devi, on Thursday won the election to the post of chairperson.

This election too had its share of drama as Imarti Devi took some of the councillors from Dabra municipality to meet Scindia in Delhi to push for her candidate for the chairperson post. She was accompanied by seven of the 14 BJP councillors, six councillors of the Congress, two of the AAP and an Independent.

Dabra was a stronghold of Home Minister Narottam Mishra until it became a reserved seat in 2007. Imarti Devi’s loss in the Dabra bypolls in 2020 was widely attributed to the internal wrangling in the party between the “newcomers” to the party and the old hands. Imarti Devi was among those who defected from the Congress to the BJP with Scindia.

Speaking to The Indian Express ahead of the elections, Imarti Devi said, “I have the support of all the people of Dabra. Sixteen councillors came with me to meet our senior leaders in Delhi, Jyotiraditya Scindia ji and Narendra Singh Tomar ji.”

Home Minister Mishra, meanwhile, dismissed talk of differences with Imarti Devi, saying, “Whoever Imarti Devi wishes will be elected as the chairman of the council.”