In battleground MP, family bad blood flares up along BJP vs Congress faultlines

Hoshangabad

Girija Shankar Sharma and Sitasaran Sharma, the brothers who made Hoshangabad a bastion of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for three decades, by winning the seat seven consecutive times between them from 1990 to 2018.

Girija,73, is the elder brother and a former two-term BJP MLA from Itarsi (now Hoshangabad) seat. He won the seat in 2003 and 2008, defeating the Congress candidate. He is known for his social work and development initiatives in the region.

Sitasaran, 69, is the five-term BJP MLA from Hoshangabad seat, having won the seat in 1990, 1993, 1998, 2013 and 2018. He has also served as the Assembly Speaker from 2014 to 2018.

The Sharma brothers have remained affiliated to the BJP for most of their political careers. In 2018, the BJP renominated Sitasaran from the Hoshangabad seat. Girija resigned from the party in protest as he had also staked his claim over it. He rejoined the party a few months later after being assured of a “respectful role”.

However, in September 2023, Girija again left the BJP to join the Congress along with a large number of his supporters, voicing his resentment against the saffron party’s policies and functioning.

The Congress has now fielded Girija as its candidate from Hoshangabad, while the BJP renominated Sitasaran from his seat, which has set up a direct fight between the two brothers for the first time in their political career.

Dabra

Staunch loyalist of Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and ex-women and child development minister, Imarti Devi, 48, will be facing off against her relative and sitting Dabra MLA Suresh Raje, 62, whose elder son is married to her brother’s daughter.

Devi did most of her political stint with the Congress, having started off as its senior vice president (Gwalior) in 1997. She was elected from Dabra in 2008 for the first time and retained the seat till 2020 as a Congress MLA.

However, following Scindia’s defection to the BJP in early 2020, Devi also followed him to the saffron camp along with his other loyalist legislators. In the ensuing bypoll, which she contested on the BJP ticket, she lost to Congress candidate Raje by 7,633 votes. Raje, who was initially with the BJP had switched to the Congress as soon as Devi quit the party. So this election will see their face-off for the third time.

In the 2013 polls, Raje had lost to Devi by 33, 278 votes. He was in the news recently after his opponents accused him of allegedly featuring in an obscene video. Raje said the “video was edited and he was blackmailed”.

This contest will see if Devi can wrest her seat from Raje, which might be more challenging as she is seen as a Scindia loyalist by disgruntled BJP old-timers.

Deotalab

Girish Gautam and Padmesh Gautam are uncle and nephew who are contesting against each other in the Vindhya Pradesh region’s Deotalab constituency.

Girish, 70, is a four-term BJP MLA from Deotalab seat. He started his political career with the Communist Party of India (CPI), but later joined the BJP and won his first election from the Mangawan seat in the 2003 polls. He shifted to the Deotalab seat in 2008 after Mangawan was reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and won three consecutive elections from there in 2008, 2013 and 2018. He also became the Assembly Speaker in early 2020, when the BJP returned to power after toppling the Kamal Nath-led Congress government.

His nephew Padmesh, 40, will make his debut in this Assembly election on the Congress ticket, nine years after he joined politics. The bad blood in their family had intensified when he played a key role in defeating Girish’s son Rahul Gautam in the Zila Panchayat elections in 2020, which was seen as a major setback for the BJP.

Sagar

The Congress party has fielded Nidhi Jain from the Sagar seat against her brother-in-law Shailendra Jain, the three-time BJP MLA from the seat. Nidhi is the wife of Sunil Jain, Shailendra’s younger brother.

Sunil was a Congress MLA from Deori in 1993. He contested during the 2022 municipal elections for the mayor’s position but lost to the BJP nominee. When asked about the fight with her brother-in-law, Nidhi told the media, “we do not have Manbhed (discord) but have Matbhed (differences of views).”

Shailendra, 60, has said he will be contesting the election on the “principles of Raj Dharma” and called upon his party workers to fight the elections with “full strength” to “protect the honour of the BJP”.

He has been dominating this seat which has a considerable Jain presence and won the 2018 election by a margin of 17,366 votes.

Timarni

A close fight is on the cards in Timarni between the BJP’s Sanjay Shah, 50, and his 31-year-old nephew and Congress leader Abhijeet Shah, who was defeated by the former in the 2018 election by 2,213 votes.

Abhijeet is said to have worked hard in the constituency. The three-time MLA Sanjay, the brother of forest minister Vijay Shah, has drawn criticism for “not being approachable”, BJP insiders said.

Abhijeet has accused his uncle of being allegedly against tribal communities. Sanjay has rejected this charge as baseless, even as both of them race to consolidate their support base among the tribal voters in this BJP stronghold.