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62 BJP leaders, including Scindia rivals, to campaign in MP to help party win 24 MLA seats

Several of the leaders include critics of Jyotiraditya Scindia, who had been angry about the former Congress leader’s switch to the BJP.

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New Delhi: The upcoming bypolls to 24 assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh are crucial for the stability of Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s BJP government, and the party is leaving no stone unturned in its pursuit of success, with three-level monitoring and a battery of leaders deployed to micro-manage preparations.

The party has named 22 senior leaders in its election management committee, including four central ministers, senior office-bearers, MPs, and even former rivals and critics of Jyotiraditya Scindia.

In addition to the election management committee, the BJP has announced another 16-member election resource committee under Chouhan’s confidant and former minister Bhupendra Singh, as well as 24 senior leaders who have been put in-charge of the 24 constituencies.


Also read: Scindia’s entry hurts BJP and Modi more than any other dynast’s. Here is why


Big names on the list

The four current central ministers in the election management committee are Narendra Singh Tomar, Prahlad Singh Patel, Thawar Chand Gehlot and Faggan Singh Kulaste, all of whom hail from Madhya Pradesh. Other big names in the committee include CM Chouhan himself, Scindia, state BJP chief V.D. Sharma, the party’s national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya and MP Rakesh Singh.

However, former Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan, BJP vice-president and former MP CM Uma Bharati, and former central minister Satyanarayan Jatiya are absent from the list.

A senior MP BJP leader downplayed the veteran leaders’ absence, saying: “Only those leaders have been roped in who are active, and whose participation is required in the Gwalior-Chambal region. We can’t accommodate the whole leadership for 24 bypolls.”

Instead, known Scindia-baiters like Deepak Joshi, Prabhat Jha, Jaibhan Singh Pawaiya, Anoop Mishra and Maya Singh are surprising inclusions, given that they had been angry about the former Congress leader’s switch to the BJP along with 22 MLAs who support him and resigned from the Congress and their assembly membership. Most of these leaders hold sway in the Gwalior-Chambal belt, Scindia’s stronghold, where 16 bypolls are set to take place.


Also read: Scindia was in talks with BJP for long, Rajya Sabha seat not reason to quit, says Shivraj


The Scindia-baiters

Joshi, son of Kailash Joshi, the first BJP CM of Madhya Pradesh, had raised the banner of revolt against the party leadership last month, saying his options were open if the BJP did not honour his contributions. Deepak Joshi has served as a minister in Chouhan’s previous tenure as CM, and had lost the 2018 assembly polls to Congress’ Manoj Chaudhary, who joined the BJP along with Scindia in March.

Sources say Joshi has been included in the 22-member team to avoid “sabotage” in his constituency Hatpipliya.

Meanwhile, Pawaiya is a known Scindia-baiter who had even fought elections against him in 2014 and against his father Madhavrao Scindia in 1998. Pawaiya has been critical of Scindia’s switch to the BJP, and reportedly told the party leadership that he would not campaign for Scindia-supporting former MLAs. But now that he is part of the BJP’s poll management team, his new responsibility is to ensure the party’s victory in the Gwalior belt.

Prabhat Jha, BJP’s national vice-president, has also been at odds with Scindia. Two months before the Congress members had switched sides, Jha had requested then-chief minister Kamal Nath to take action against Scindia for allegedly encroaching government land in Shivpuri in the name of a trust. Jha had even been quoted as saying that his prediction of Scindia losing the 2019 Lok Sabha polls had come true, and that the Congress would not give him a Rajya Sabha ticket. Instead, the BJP has now given Scindia a Rajya Sabha ticket.

Anoop Mishra, nephew of late prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee also finds himself in the committee, despite being denied a Lok Sabha ticket from Morena last year. He told ThePrint that the focus was now on ensuring the BJP’s victory.

“We have to ensure we win in the by-elections. Everybody has ambitions in politics, but once the party decides, everybody fights for that goal. There is no question of personal resentment; we all work for the party,” Mishra said.

Also on the list is Maya Singh, former Madhya Pradesh minister and another fierce Scindia critic, despite being a member of the same Gwalior royal family. She had been denied a ticket in the last assembly elections, and before that, Scindia had campaigned against her.


Also read: Jyotiraditya Scindia will just be a trophy on Amit Shah’s wall unless he shows his utility


Narottam Mishra deputed to keep peace

Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra, who was once a claimant for the CM’s post, has now emerged as a troubleshooter for CM Chouhan. Having been instrumental in the BJP toppling Kamal Nath’s government and installing its own, he has now been assigned the task of managing these dissident leaders to minimise any chances of sabotage.

Mishra Sunday met Scindia opponents Pawaiya and Maya Singh to pacify them and engage them to ensure a BJP victory. He also met Anoop Mishra and another former minister Narayan Singh Kushwaha.

Apart from Mishra, party general secretary Vijayvargiya and his close confidant and Indore MLA Ramesh Mendola are also tasked with keeping the peace, especially given the fact that Kamal Nath is apparently talking to several dissident BJP leaders to switch sides and fight on Congress tickets. Recently, former ministers Balendu Shukla and Prem Chand Guddu switched to the Congress.

However, Vishvas Sarang, BJP MLA from Narela and in-charge of the Ashok Nagar constituency, told ThePrint that grievances of BJP leaders and workers have been addressed.

“The Congress is day-dreaming of sabotage, but everyone in our party knows our first priority was to establish BJP government, which has been done, and if anyone has any ambitions, they can only be fulfilled if the government is stable. So there is no question of grievance and dissent,” Sarang said.


Also read: Maharaja Scindia has shown Congress the way: Find other NPAs within and get cracking


 

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