In MP, BJP, Cong buffeted by resignations, protests as denial of tickets sets off storm

Former minister Rustam Singh resigned from the BJP Sunday. He was seeking ticket from Morena for his son Rakesh Singh, but the party fielded Raghuraj Kansana.

Kansana had won Morena as a Congress candidate. After the defection by Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia to the BJP, his supporter Kansana also left the Congress. He contested the bypoll on a BJP ticket and lost by a margin of 5,751 votes.

At the time many Morena-based BJP leaders, including Singh, were said to have been unhappy with Kansana’s nomination. He also blamed the BJP leadership in Morena for his defeat in the bypoll.

Rustam Singh is a retired IPS officer and has been a minister twice in the BJP government in the state.

On Sunday, supporters of former BJP MLA and ex-minister Umashankar Gupta raised slogans in front of state BJP president VD Sharma in Bhopal, demanding to replace party candidate Bhagwandas Sabnani, who is in the fray from Bhopal South West constituency. Several office-bearers of the BJP from Bhopal South West wrote letters to the state unit chief demanding ticket for Gupta.

Former BJP MLA from Tikamgarh, K K Shrivastava, resigned from the primary membership of the party expressing displeasure over ticket distribution in a letter addressed to the state BJP president.

Shrivastav said, “I feel pain that the party that I gave my life for, fought 18 cases, went to jail, and I had to leave because of their wrong decisions.”

The Congress is facing the anger of its own supporters in around 40 Assembly seats, with resignations reported from five seats.

On Monday, angry workers of Shujalpur and Hoshangabad constituencies demonstrated at former CM Kamal Nath’s bungalow in Bhopal.

Congress activists from Shujalpur in Shajapur protested outside the residence of Kamal Nath seeking a ticket for Yogendra Singh alias Bunty Bana from Shujalpur in place of Ramveer Singh Sikarwar, who is the party’s official nominee. This is the second time in the last three days that Congress workers have protested in Bhopal against Sikarwar.

Supporters of Congressman Chandra Gopal Malaiya, meanwhile, protested seeking a ticket for him from Hoshangabad seat in place of Girijashanker Sharma, a two-time BJP MLA who recently joined the Congress.

The party’ decision to field former MLA Subash Sojatia from Garoth was met with aggressive protests by party workers, who hit the photos of Sojatia and former CM Digvijaya Singh, with shoes, angry over ticket allotment to Sojatia who lost two back-to-back elections.