The Aryavarth Express
Agency (Madhya Pradesh): By announcing candidates for all 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP has taken the lead over the INDIA bloc, which is yet to declare all its candidates. The BJP leadership is taking advantage of the situation and is creating a hype over what it calls “winnability”. The two latest opinion polls – IndiaTV-CNX and News18 – have projected the BJP to win 29 and 28 seats respectively out of the total of 29 seats. The ground reality, however, indicates not an easy sweep but closer contests on all the seats.
The BJP gave greater political priority to Madhya Pradesh and announced candidates for 24 Lok Sabha seats in its first list, with 12 new faces replacing 7 incumbent MPs and filling 5 who had resigned from Lok Sabha membership after becoming MLAs following their victories in the state assembly election held in November 2023.
This shows the fear in the BJP which was not in a position to repeat its sitting MPs on account of anti-incumbency in half of the constituencies for which new faces were announced. Candidates on 5 other seats – Balaghat, Chhindwara, Ujjain, Dhar, and Indore were announced in the second list on March 13.
Of the five, two sitting MPs have been dropped, which has increased the number of new faces to 14. It should be noted that BJP had done internal assessment on all the seats, but because of adverse reports on 14 out of 28 seats that it had won in 2019, the party was compelled to field new faces, essentially to overcome anti-incumbency and other adverse political conditions including warring groups and bitter infighting.
BJP is contesting alone in Madhya Pradesh while INDIA bloc will be its main challenger in all seats – Congress will be contesting on 28 and Samajwadi Party (SP) on one seat. Changing the 14 sitting MPs has underlined the BJP’s mounting political challenge in the state, though only about four months ago, in the November 2023 Vidhan Sabha election, the party had registered a spectacular win.
Out of 230 assembly seats, BJP bagged 163 when the opposition Congress could win only 66 seats. One seat was won by Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP). But beneath the BJP’s spectacular success was a disturbing ground reality that compelled the BJP to change its sitting MPs and bringing in new faces.
During the 2023 Vidhan Sabha elections, the Congress and other INDIA bloc partners, had contested separately, which led to a division of anti-BJP votes, which was advantage BJP. This time, the INDIA bloc is contesting as a united whole, which will pose a bigger challenge to the BJP.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won 28 out of the 29 Madhya Pradesh seats with 58 percent vote share. Then, there was a swing of 4 percent in favour of the BJP riding on Pulwama wave. The Congress could win only one seat with a vote share of 34.50 percent. If the BJP wants to retain its seats in 2024, it needs to maintain its vote share at 58 percent. But in the November 2023 Vidhan Sabha elections, the BJP’s vote share had declined to 48.55 percent.
Though the Congress could win only 66 seats in November 2023, after losing 48 seats, the party was able to increase its vote share from 34.50 percent in 2019 to 40.40 percent. This has disturbed the peace of mind of BJP leaders including that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, forcing the BJP to change 50 percent of its sitting MPs from the state.
INDIA bloc’s challenge does not end here. Out of 55 districts in Madhya Pradesh, there are still 9 districts–Sheopur, Tikamgarh, Mandla, Balaghat, Chhindwara, Harda, Barwani, Jhabua, and Dhar – where the Congress has been the dominant political factor. Even in the November 2023 election, which brought it a humiliating defeat, it was able to win a majority of Vidhan Sabha seats from these districts. There are also 9 other districts –Morena, Gwalior, Guna, Niwari, Dindori, Seoni, Agar Malwa, Alirajpur, and Khargone – where the BJP and the Congress won an equal number of seats. Both the parties will thus be in tough contests in these districts.
Another disturbing ground reality is that during the November 2023 Vidhan Sabha elections, the BJP won a large number of seats by only a very thin margin–Shajapur by 28 votes, Dharampuri by 356, Mandhata by 589, Gunnaor by 1160, Sohagpur by 1762, Surkhi by 2178, Jawad by 2364, Gurh by 2493, Gwalior South by 2536, Sewdaby 2558, and Lanji by 2773 votes.
The BJP won another six seats by a margin between 3000-5000 and another 14 seats by a margin between 5000-10,000. There were 18 seats where BJP’s winning margin was between 10,000-15,000 and in another 21 seats it had a winning margin between 15,000-20,000.
This scenario is quite challenging for the BJP as the state heads for a tough electoral battle even as the political narrative in the country is going against the BJP ever since February 2024, when the Electoral Bond Scam established that the Modi government had coerced businesses and corporates with the use of ED and other central agencies to shell out huge donations to fill BJP coffers, in the process disrupting the level playing field for opposition political parties. (IPA Service)
By Dr. Gyan Pathak