Nail-biting contest on 35 seats likely

 

 

 

Elections on around 35 seats, most of them are from northern parts of the State, seems to pose a tough challenge before the ruling BJP and main opposition Congress. A deeper analysis and poll observers opinions at the low margin contests in the State in last a few elections advocates significance of these seats results to form Government. Needless to mention that albeit falling short of the half-way mark by two seats in 2018, the Congress was emerged as the largest party and with support formed the government. This time, tough fights can be expected at more than three dozen seats including Mandhata, Nepanagar, Biaora, Rajpur, Deotalab, Indore 1, Damoh, Jabalpur North, Jaora and Suwasra. The victory margin was only 121 votes at Gwalior South, where Praveen Pathak of the Congress defeated sitting BJP MLA Narayan Singh Kushwaha in the last election. Farmers’ protest played a crucial role in Malwa region last year but this time too, farmers can play a decisive role in Mandsaur district. As the Congress retained Suwasra seat by only 350 votes, this time Congress has fielded Rakesh Patidar from this seat, the grand old party has given ticket to Vipin Jain from Mandsaur. While some of the seats have a margin of less than 1,000 votes.

 

This time Jaora is represented by Rajendra Pandey (BJP) but he won the elections by 511 votes. In Jabalpur North, Vinay Saxena of the Congress defeated sitting MLA Sharad Jain of the BJP by 578 votes. Victory margin in Bina was 632 votes. Abhijit Shah from Congress will contest election from Timarni. It is a reserved seat for ST. BJP defeated the Congress candidate by 2213 votes. Here Gondwana Gantantra Party had caused loss to Congress. Its candidate got 5,722 votes. Not only small parties but use of NOTA factor in last elections is pressing alarm for both the main parties in the state. State’s election was the most closely fought Assembly polls in recent times in the country as the vote share indicates how close the electoral contest between the BJP and challenger Congress had and with 40.9 per cent vote share Congress formed government while the BJP gained with 41 per cent vote share. Remarkably, the losing party got 0.1 percentage point more than the winning one and 1.4 per cent or 5,42,295 voters opted for NOTA (None Of The Above) option. In Indore 1, both the parties have fielded Mass leaders MLA Sanjay Shukla has been given ticket again by Congress while BJP has fielded BJP General Secretary, Kailash Vijayvargiya, who is master of management.

 

Being at the western region, there is an inconspicuous presence of other parties so main fight will be between Congress and BJP, which is going to be tough this time as the political analyst suggests. In 2018, ten assembly seats were settled by a margin of less than 1,000 votes. Seven went to the Congress. Only four of the low margin (less than 2,000 votes) contests went in BJP's favour in last election. In three of these seats, the victory margin for the BJP was less than 1,000 votes. In Bina, Mahesh Rai of the BJP defeated Shashi Kathoria of the Congress by 632 votes. The BJP had retained this seat. In Kolaras, the party is witnessing rebellion factor at a high rate. Last time, Virendra Raghuvanshi of the BJP defeated Mahendra Ramsingh Yadav of Congress by 720 votes. Virendra Raghuwanshi resigned from BJP and Joined Congress party but this time he has been denied ticket from Congress. In Damoh in 2018, Rahul Singh of the Congress defeated sitting MLA Jayant Malaiya of the BJP by 798 votes. This year in a major move Son of Jayant Malaiya, Siddharth Malaiya returned to the BJP. Here, in 2013, the AAP party fielded TV actress Chahat Pandey from Damoh.