The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh regained its lost strongholds in the Gwalior-Chambal region and Malwa in particular, keeping the party out of power in the state assembly elections two years ago, according to votes from the party candidates in by-elections held in 28 constituencies.
Bypoll results released Tuesday gave 19 of the 28 seats to the BJP and 9 to Congress. Compare that to the 2018 assembly elections, where the BJP could win just one of these seats.
In the by-elections, the BJP won 9 of the 16 seats in the Gwalior-Chambal region, while it made almost a sweep in the Malwa region, where it won six of the seven seats. It won the remaining four seats in the central MP, Bundelkhand and Vindhya regions.
There was a big difference in the polling percentage of the two parties. While the BJP obtained 49.46% of the polled votes, Congress “was almost 9% less than that of the BJP with 40.50%.
The BJP vote percentage in the 2018 assembly elections was 41.33%, which was almost equal to the Congressional voting percentage (41.35), but the mood of voters in the two regions in In particular, he denied the former a fourth consecutive term in power in the state. .
In the Gwalior-Chambal region, which has 34 seats in the assembly, Congress won as many as 26 in 2018, while the BJP, which had won 20 seats in 2013, had to content itself with just 7 seats. Similarly, in the Malwa-Nimad region, which has 66 seats and was supposed to be the stronghold of the saffron brigade, the BJP’s strength was reduced to 28 seats in 2018 from 56 seats in the assembly polls of 2013, while Congress won 35 seats in the region in 2018. It had won just 9 seats in the 2013 assembly polls.
Political analyst Jayant Singh Tomar said: “The BJP debacle in the Gwalior-Chambal region in 2018 could be attributed to one major factor, namely the ‘My ka laal’ speech delivered by Chouhan at a meeting of government employees in SC / ST in 2016 in addition to Congress’ farmer loan waiver promise before the election. Chouhan had said that no one could take their reservation (SC / ST).
“In the region’s caste politics, the speech deeply hurt the sentiments of the upper castes, traditionally BJP voters, who moved away. But in the last two years, public anger dissipated and what overshadowed Chouhan’s speech was the failure of Congress on the governance front in his 15-month term. ”
He said: “Another important factor that gave the BJP an advantage in the by-elections in the region was having the main leader Jyotiraditya Scindia on its side. Congress hardly had a leader in the region who could match Scindia’s attractiveness and stature. All these factors, along with the failure of Congress to unite a pre-election alliance with smaller parties, gave the BJP the opportunity to regain its lost stronghold in the region. ”
Political analyst Girija Shankar said: “Having made breakthroughs in the BJP stronghold in 2018, Congress was expected to work on their breakthroughs in the two regions in particular to strengthen its base, but the Kamal Nath government lost all its time of 15 months in power while disregarding the fact that BJP has tremendous force under Prime Minister Shviraj Singh Chouhan’s leadership to return at any moment to regain its lost strongholds. ”
Congress argued that the elections were not held in a “free and fair environment.”
State Congress spokesman Bhupendra Gupta said: “It is difficult to say whether the BJP recovered its lost bastions. Because the by-elections were not held in a free and fair environment. There was a massive abuse of the governmental machinery and the BJP in power used all tactics to ensure their victory. But despite all these manipulations, Congress won 9 of the seats, which shows that the people were angry with the BJP government and did not vote for the BJP. ”
BJP State Leader Dr. Hitesh Bajpai said: “Bypolls gave voters an opportunity to undo what they had done in the 2018 assembly elections by awarding a little more seats to Congress at that time. The by-elections have shown that the BJP continues to maintain its base in the state thanks to the strength of its policies and its leadership in the Center and in the state. This will also continue in the next elections to the assembly ”.
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