Mama, Maharaja & Raja make MP’s Round-3 battle of bigwigs
BHOPAL: The third phase of LS elections is a blockbuster round for Madhya Pradesh. It will decide the political future of three bigwigs — ‘Maharaja’ Jyotiraditya Scindia, ‘bacchon ke mama and behno ke bhaiyya’ Shivraj Singh Chouhan and ‘raja’ of Raghogarh Digvijaya Singh aka Diggy Raja. Scindia, the Union aviation minister, returns to Guna to try to reclaim the family seat after his shock loss to former aide K P Yadav in 2019.
He had won four times from the seat that has traditionally voted for the Scindias — from ‘Rajmata’ Vijayraje to Madhavrao and Jyotiraditya — and hadn’t expected to be the first to lose it. That, too, by over 1.25 lakh votes. The equations have changed since. Scindia quit Congress in March 2020 and is now the BJP candidate. Yadav, hailed as a hero by BJP in 2019, finds himself sidelined and understandably not very pleased. At a rally in Guna, Union home minister Amit Shah called Scindia “Maharaj” and appealed to voters to “not worry about K P Yadav” as BJP will take care of his future.
“You will get two leaders,” he told the voters of Guna. “Jyotiraditya and K P Yadav.” “Jyotiraditya is BJP’s candidate. Among us, if any person is totally dedicated to development, then it is this Maharaj. The Scindia family has nurtured this region more than their children,” Shah said.
Despite Shah’s campaign, Guna may not be easy for Scindia. One of the major reasons is the predominant Yadav vote bank which turned its back on him in 2019. Also, the Congress candidate, Rao Yadvendra Singh Yadav, is a former BJP worker with a Jan Sangh legacy. His father, Rao Deshraj Singh Yadav, had established the saffron party in Chambal and challenged Scindia in the 2002 LS bypoll, held after the demise of Madhavrao Scindia in an air crash.
In the sympathy wave, Jyotiraditya defeated Deshraj by over 4 lakh votes. Deshraj had also contested unsuccessfully against Madhavrao Scindia in 1999. His son, Yadvendra, recently switched to Congress after over two decades with BJP. He is also a member of Ashokenagar district panchayat. It’s again a family vs family contest with the sides switched.
In Rajgarh, it’s Digvijaya’s homecoming after 30 years. He contested this seat thrice and won in 1984 and 1991. He was defeated in 1989 by Jan Sangh leader Pyarelal Khandelwal. In 1991, Singh defeated Khandelwal by just 1,470 votes. After becoming CM in Dec 1993, Digvijaya vacated Rajgarh seat. His brother Lakshman Singh won the bypoll that followed, and four more polls from Rajgarh, the last one on a BJP ticket in 2004. To prove his loyalty to Congress, Digvijaya fielded Narayan Singh Amlave as the party’s candidate against his brother in 2009 and personally campaigned to ensure Congress’ win.
Amlave beat Lakshman by 24,388 votes. That was the last time Raghogarh royal family represented the seat. The Modi wave caught up with Rajgarh in 2014 and 2019 when BJP’s Rodmal Nagar, a local businessman close to RSS, won by margins of 2.2 lakh and 4.3 lakh. This is Digvijaya’s turf where the 77-year-old is known as Rajasahab. The Raja returned, albeit wounded, from Bhopal in 2019 when he lost to Malegaon blast accused Pragya Singh Thakur, BJP’s candidate.
Diggy Raja is running a determined campaign, addressing public meetings and contacting voters in 25 villages a day. But it is a hard fight. Six of the eight assembly segments of Rajgarh have BJP MLAs. The only two Congressheld ones are Raghogarh, where his son Jaivardhan is the MLA, and Susner where Congress’ Bhairon Singh is the MLA. Jaivardhan won by a margin of 4,505 votes in the Nov 2023 assembly elections and Bhairon by 12,645 votes.
Compared to Maharaja and Raja, former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is sitting pretty in Vidisha — an impregnable BJP fortress last won by Congress in 1984. Before becoming CM, Chouhan represented Vidisha five times in LS from 1991 (when Atal Behari Vajpayee vacated it) till 2006. Chouhan returns to his LS seat after 18 years. Congress has fielded Pratap Bhanu Sharma, the last partyman to win Vidisha in 1980 and 1984. Vidisha is where Sushma Swaraj won by over 4 lakh votes in 2009 and 2014. In 2019, a relatively less known Ramakant Bhargava won by over 5 lakh votes.
Mama Shivraj — chief minister for 16 years whose popularity hit the peak with Ladli Bahna Yojana — is targeting a victory margin of 8 lakh votes. If he achieves this, Chouhan will again emerge as the most popular political face of Madhya Pradesh despite not being chief minister anymore. At a public meeting in Betul last Wednesday, PM Modi said he was taking Chouhan to Parliament.
“On May 7, there is an election in Vidisha where my brother Shivraj ji is the candidate. Shivraj Singh Chouhan and I used to work together in the organisation. When he was chief minister and I was chief minister, we used to work together. He went to Parliament when I used to work as general secretary. And now again I want to take him with me,” the PM said. This, however, means that Chouhan’s era in Madhya Pradesh is over; he will now return to central politics.