New Delhi: At a BJP meeting in Gwalior Sunday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah issued a strict warning against infighting ahead of the upcoming Madhya Pradesh assembly elections.
But the party’s first list of candidates — released earlier this month with an aim to get a headstart in the polls — has kicked up conflict in at least 12 seats, with multiple aspirants who have been denied tickets threatening to contest as Independents.
The list covered 39 seats where the BJP sees itself as weak — the party lost the 2018 election in 38 of these (except Jhabua) with higher-than-average margins (over 16,473 votes).
The candidates include 12 fresh faces. Sixteen 2018 candidates have been denied tickets, and the voices of rebellion are the loudest in this group.
The dissenters include BJP national secretary Om Prakash Dhurve, who has been fielded from Shahpura instead of Dindori, which he lost to the Congress by 34,000 votes in 2018.
Then there is Mamta Meena, who lost from Guna’s Chachoura seat to Congress candidate Laxman Singh — former CM Digvijaya Singh’s brother — in 2018.
In Dewas district’s Sonkatch, former candidate Rajendra Verma is displeased because he has reportedly been denied a ticket as part of a strategy to keep the field clear in another seat for a Congress rebel who joined the party as part of the Jyotiraditya Scindia rebellion in 2020.
Other areas of conflict include Maharajpur, Sagar, Banda, Jhabua, Lanhi and Sabalgarh.
Of the 39 seats in question, the BJP won 28 in 2013, while 11 went to the Congress. In 2008, it was 20 for the BJP and 18 for the Congress.
The announcement of candidates months before the election was a first for the BJP, and it was meant to give the nominees more time to campaign as well as check dissent in time.
Taking a cue from the 2022 Himachal Pradesh election, where the party did not succeed in containing the rebellion and ended up losing, the BJP pressed election management committee convenor Narendra Singh Tomar, Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, among others, to calm down rebel leaders.
Reached for comment, MP BJP general secretary Bhagwandas Sabnani said it was natural to express some discontent after ticket distribution.
“But the BJP is a party where we have a robust system of listening to workers’ complaints. Senior leaders… are in touch with those who have some complaints against the candidate. The party will convince them to ensure the party’s win as stated by the home minister in a recent meeting.”
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‘Betrayed by BJP’
Speaking to ThePrint, Om Prakash Dhurve said he was “expecting a ticket from Dindori as I was preparing for this seat for the last one year”.
“But the party has given me a ticket from another seat. I will convey my feeling to the party leadership,” he said.
Dhurve, a tribal leader, is a former state minister and won from Dindori in 1998 and 2003, but lost in 2008. He won from Shahpura in 2013.
In Chachoura, Mamta Meena has challenged the BJP’s decision to nominate Priyanka Meena, who is the wife of an IRS officer and joined the party in February. Priyanka had contested against Mamta in the 2022 panchayat election and lost by 235 votes. Mamta Meena’s supporters organised a meeting in the constituency Monday to protest against the BJP’s decision to not nominate her.
Mamta said she had been “working for the party for 20 years”. “But the party suddenly gave the ticket to a parachute candidate. Even the chief minister told me to work in the constituency,” she added. “The party has betrayed me. I contested from a seat where Digvijaya Singh has been strong for years. Now, I will fight for my dignity… I will take a decision on contesting as an Independent after consulting my supporters.”
From Sonkatch, the BJP has fielded the party’s Indore rural district chief Rajesh Sonkar, who earlier represented Sanwer. Tulsiram Silawat, one of the Scindia loyalists and a minister in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government, is the current Sanwer MLA.
Sonkar has reportedly been fielded from Sonkatch to make the road clear for Silawat, which has left former candidate Rajendra Verma unhappy.
In 2018, Sajjan Verma of the Congress had defeated Rajendra Verma by 9,818 votes and he is likely to be fielded again by the Congress.
Rajendra Verma told ThePrint that the “party has given tickets to a few candidates who lost the 2018 election”. “Lal Singh Arya lost, but he was given a ticket… But why has such injustice been done to me, by denying me a ticket? Now I will take a decision after consultation with my supporters.”
Arya, the chief of the BJP’s national Scheduled Caste morcha chief, has been nominated from Gohad seat, which he last won in 2013. He was defeated in 2018 by Ranvir Jatav, another Scindia loyalist who joined the BJP in 2018. Jatav, it is learnt, is resentful about being denied the Gohad ticket, but the BJP has deputed Scindia to convince him against airing his views.
Jatav lost the 2020 bypoll — necessitated by the rebellion — to the Congress’ Mewa Ram Jatav by 9,899 votes.
Arya is said to have got the ticket due to his proximity to the Delhi high-command and his position as SC morcha chief.
In Maharajpur, local BJP leaders have expressed displeasure over the nomination of a descendant of an erstwhile royal family. Candidate Kamakhya Pratap Singh is the son of former MLA Manvendra Singh.
Once a minister in a government led by Digvijaya Singh, Manvendra won the 2013 election on a BJP ticket. He lost in 2018 to the Congress.
In Chhatarpur, the party has given a ticket to former MP minister and MLA Lalita Yadav, whose candidature has been challenged by the supporter of district president Pushpendra Pratap.
The latter is believed to have been expecting a ticket for wife Archana Singh, a former nagar palika president.
In Jhabua, where Congress’ tribal leader Kanti Lal Bhuria defeated the BJP’s Bhanu Bhuria in the 2019 bypoll by a margin of 27,804 votes, the BJP has reposed faith in Bhanu Bhuria, who is a former district party president. But former nagar palika parishad president Dhan Singh Bariya has announced that he will fight independently against the BJP candidate.
In Lanhi and Sabalgarh, local leaders have opposed the candidature of Rajkumar Karahe and Sarla Vijay Rawat.
A senior MP BJP leader involved in managing the rebellion said the list was announced early with such a scenario in mind.
“In Himachal, the party was defeated in a number of seats because we announced tickets at the last moment and there was no time left to mollify rebels or change candidates,” he said. “We are announcing MP candidates prior to poll dates so that we get enough time to convince party leaders who are angry and manage any rebellion more precisely,” the leader added.
“In several seats, observers have been sent. If we find that there is an atmosphere against the declared candidate, we have time to change the candidate,” the leader said. “Also, senior leaders have been asked to meet those who are protesting against the declared candidates. We are hopeful that we will manage the rebellion within two weeks.”
An earlier version of the report identified Bhanu Bhuria as the BJP’s district party president for Jhabua. He is a former Jhabua BJP chief. The error has been corrected.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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