As the Lok Sabha elections conclude in Madhya Pradesh on Monday, with voting in the final eight of the 29 seats, the Congress, tottering from a series of high-profile exits, has channelised its might on a handful of constituencies to spoil the BJP’s game plan of winning all 29 parliamentary seats in the state. For the BJP, for which the Hindi heartland state has been a stronghold for decades — it stormed to power in the state elections in December by bagging 163 of the 224 seats — a drop in turnout in the first two phases has been a cause for concern. “The central BJP team analysed the data and found that the women voters, who are the beneficiaries of the Ladli Behna scheme, did not turn up in large numbers in the first two phases as they did during the Assembly elections. Many workers also did not campaign with full force. The central leadership had to shake up the party to prevent them from being over-confident in several quarters,” said a senior BJP leader. The women welfare beneficiaries and the positive image of former CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan among them are said to have helped the party register its massive Assembly poll victory. In a handful of constituencies, the BJP’s chances do not look bright because of anti-incumbency against sitting MPs. In Rajgarh, for instance, two-term MP Rodmal Nagar who is pitted against former Congress CM Digvijaya Singh has been facing stiff opposition from within his party. During campaigning, Nagar relied heavily on the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Also, candidates such as Union Minister Faggan Singh Kulaste (Mandla), Ganesh Singh (Satna), Alok Sharma (Bhopal), and Bharat Singh Kushwah (Gwalior) who lost in the state elections were picked for the Lok Sabha battle. The Congress play The Congress hopes to gain from these seats, with a Congress leader saying, “This time we are not spreading the party machinery too thin, hoping to carry through in a handful of seats.” The Congress has been attempting to stop desertions since the exit of big leaders such as three of its MLAs and its Lok Sabha Indore candidate Akshay Kanti Bam along with thousands of party workers. Since Bam jumped ship to join the BJP, the Congress has been campaigning for NOTA in Indore, pasting walls and auto-rickshaws with posters, organising torch rallies and meetings, and hosting social media chats to tell voters to teach the BJP “a lesson”. The BJP’s claim that it had inducted “over 5 lakh Congress leaders” has been denied by the Congress as a “ploy to demoralise its cadre”. The BJP will have its eyes set on former Chief Minister Kamal Nath's stronghold in Chhindwara, where his son Nakul Nath is trying to secure a second term. The BJP has managed to bring over 2,000 leaders into its fold, including sitting Amarwara MLA Kamleshwar Shah, hoping to dent the tribal support for the Congress, even though Nakul loyalists said they feel they will win this time as well. In the northern regions of the state, Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia will hope to reclaim his family seat of Guna. Scindia hopes that the Yadav voters, who had moved away from his camp, will return with CM Mohan Yadav batting for him in Guna. The tribal regions of the state are also where the Congress hopes to capitalise, although its tally in the 47 Assembly seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes (STs) declined from 31 to 22 in the state elections. Around a third of its MLAs in these regions belong to the tribal community, and the Congress is looking to leave an impact in Dhar, Betul, Shahdol, Ratlam, Mandla, and Khargone. What appears to be obstacles for the Congress are a weak organisation damaged by resignations, lack of finances, and the absence of strong alternatives to the “Modi guarantees”. All these have resulted in a lack of buzz in the Congress campaign in the state, especially in BJP strongholds such as Bundelkhand, Vindhya, Malwa-Nimar, and the Bhopal-Narmadapuram regions. In the Gwalior-Chambal region, where the Congress fancies its chances, the entry of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is causing a headache for the Congress as the Mayawati-led party has chosen Congress turncoats as candidates. They could split the votes and ultimately sway the situation in favour of the BJP.
