New Delhi: A mock funeral procession for BJP Rajasthan chief C.P. Joshi in Chittorgarh. The party’s Rajsamand office vandalised. Union minister Bhupender Yadav, the election incharge for Madhya Pradesh, heckled. The BJP is witnessing rebellion like seldom before ahead of assembly elections in the two states.
The BJP’s ticket lists for Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have triggered discontent and dissidence, with workers taking their disappointment to the streets.
While efforts by the party were already underway to mollify disgruntled leaders, the announcement of the second list for Rajasthan (200-seat assembly) and the fifth for Madhya Pradesh (230-seat assembly) over the weekend has sparked fresh protests.
In its second list for Rajasthan, the BJP named 83 candidates for the 25 November election. In Madhya Pradesh, the fifth list has taken the number of candidates announced to 228.
Speaking off the record, BJP leaders have raised questions about the ticket distribution and the management of the ensuing protests. However, the BJP has termed the protests “natural”, citing the competition for each seat.
“It is quite natural to have such reactions as there is one seat and many contenders. A few protests have taken place but these are our own people and we are in constant touch with them,” said Rajasthan BJP spokesperson Laxmikant Bhardwaj.
“Our leadership is aware of the situation and our main focus is to defeat the Congress,” he added, saying “another reason for such protests and angry reactions is because everyone knows there will be a BJP government and everyone wants to be a part of it”.
“More than 90 percent of the protesters have understood that, and what you are witnessing is just a few odd people. However, after a limit, action will be taken for indiscipline,” he said.
MP BJP spokesperson Hitesh Bajpai said the “BJP is a democratic party and everyone is entitled to their views”. “Protests and party workers and leaders being upset about ticket distribution is quite natural and happens all the time,” he added.
“There’s nothing new in it. But our workers are committed and they know our task is to defeat the Congress.”
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What’s happening in Rajasthan
In Rajasthan’s Chittorgarh, the BJP’s second list denied a ticket to incumbent MLA Chandrabhan Singh Aakya and fielded three-time MLA Narpat Singh Rajvi instead.
Rajvi is former Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat’s son-in-law and he had mounted a very public protest after he was denied a ticket from his constituency Vidhayadhar Nagar.
However, the bid to accommodate Rajvi has now left Aakya’s supporters fuming, and many of them were seen tearing posters of Joshi and taking out a mock funeral procession for him.
“After Rajvi was denied a ticket, he had alleged that doing so was a compromise of Shekhawat’s legacy. So, the party had no option but to accommodate him,” said a senior BJP leader.
“But in accommodating him, they have now upset another sitting MLA. This is a recipe for disaster. The way ticket distribution has happened seems bizarre as Aakya was quite ahead in the survey. Naturally, he and his supporters are upset,” the leader added.
Speaking to ThePrint, Aakya admitted that his supporters have been protesting and said he will decide his future course of action in the coming few days.
“I will do what the people ask me to do. I work for them. This ticket denial is in fact due to local politics. C.P. Joshi has played a game and everyone in the party is quite aware of it,” he added.
“Not only the Chittorgarh seat, but this action of the party will affect the entire district. This is a natural reaction of the people,” said Aakya.
The BJP declared its second list Saturday.
On Sunday, while supporters of Aakya burnt Joshi’s effigy at many places, in Rajsamand, angry workers vandalised the party’s district office and set campaign-related material ablaze on the streets, allegedly protesting against the re-nomination of Deepti Maheshwari as BJP candidate from the seat.
According to a party functionary, workers have demanded that a local candidate be fielded instead. Maheshwari, originally from neighbouring Udaipur, is the sitting MLA and daughter of former Rajsamand MLA Kiran Maheshwari.
“She was elected after the death of her mother Kiran Maheshwari, in a byelection. That time, it was a sympathy wave. Now, local residents have a problem with the fact that earlier it was the mother and now the daughter is getting the ticket,” said the functionary.
Protests by BJP workers have also been reported from Bhilwara, Makrana, Udaipur, Sanganer, Namana, Neem ka Thana, Kota, Jaipur, Alwar and Bundi.
Party leaders say the protests should have been “managed better”. “Though it is natural to have such reactions after ticket distribution, the workers have been responding aggressively after being ignored this time,” said a state BJP leader in Rajasthan.
“The way ticket distribution has been handled by the party leadership is one of the major reasons behind it. With elections just round the corner the party needs to mollify the workers,” the leader added.
In Madhya Pradesh
The scenes were no different in Madhya Pradesh.
In Jabalpur North, supporters of Sharad Jain, who won the seat in 2003, 2008 and 2013, barged into the party office and cornered Bhupender Yadav and manhandled a security person.
Jain lost the 2018 election to the Congress’s Vinay Kumar Saxena with a narrow margin of 578 votes, and has this time been replaced with Abhilash Pandey, the former president of the BJP Yuva Morcha in the state.
Based on videos of the incident, a case was registered and three people were arrested.
The BJP has so far declared candidates for all of the state’s seats barring Vidisha and Guna. However, so far, only 13 of the 22 Jyotiraditya Scindia loyalists who shifted to the BJP in 2020 — causing the erstwhile Kamal Nath government to fall and the BJP to return to office — have been given tickets.
In its fifth list, Munnalal Goyal, a Scindia loyalist who lost the bypoll from Gwalior East in 2020, was dropped.
The BJP has instead fielded Maya Singh — a former MLA who won in 2013 by defeating Goyal — against the Congress’s Satish Shikharwar.
Munnalal Goyal Sunday lay in front of Jyotiraditya Scindia’s car in Gwalior. Demonstrations were also held inside the Jai Vilas Palace in Gwalior.
The ticket for Maya Singh has also led to the resignation of the BJP’s Morena district incharge Jai Singh Kushwaha, who had reportedly been eyeing a ticket from the seat as well.
In Bhind, after the BJP denied a ticket to former BSP MLA Sanjeev Singh Kushwaha, who had joined the BJP last year, his supporters burnt effigies of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and Jyotiraditya Scindia.
Sanjeev Singh Kushwaha has instead decided to contest independently.
Similarly, after the BJP declared former assembly speaker and incumbent MLA Sitasharan Shukla its candidate from Hoshangabad, party workers supported the candidature of Bhagwati Chaure. He has also warned of contesting independently.
In Churai of Chhindwara district, supporters of Ramesh Dubey protested at the BJP office after the BJP gave a ticket to Lakhan Verma. The seat is currently with the Congress.
In Nagod, after the BJP gave a ticket to sitting MLA Nagendra Singh (80), supporters of Gaganendra Pratap Singh protested, alleging that young leaders are being ignored.
In Raigaon, after the BJP fielded Pratima Bagri on an SC-reserved ticket, district party vice-president Pushparaj Bagri, former state minister Jugal Kishore Bagri’s son, resigned from his post.
Jugal Kishore Bagri’s death in 2021 had necessitated a bypoll on the seat. The BJP had nominated Pratima Bagri for the bypoll too and she had lost.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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