The bypolls in Madhya Pradesh threw up a rather interesting scenario: though the ruling BJP stamped its authority, winning two of three assembly seats and gaining a winnable margin in the Khandwa Lok Sabha seat (at the time of filing this report), it lost the Raigaon seat.
The two seats BJP won—Jobat and Prithvipur—were held by the Congress.
BJP’s performance comes as a relief for Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who, as the face of the BJP in the state, had conducted a whirlwind campaign. There have been rumours about a possible change of guard in MP following the results, but, after the results, his grip on the CM’s chair has tightened.
Chouhan highlighted the swing in tribal support in favour of the BJP, as the biggest achievement of the bypolls. He called the results 'adbut and abhutpurva' (wonderful and unprecedented) as the party snatched ST reserved Jobat from Congress and retained Khandwa, which has a substantial tribal population. He also credited the win to the work of his government in the state and the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Mod.
Ahead of the bypolls, which was touted as the semifinals before the 2023 assembly polls, BJP had taken recourse to obvious wooing of tribal population in the state. The Congress, too, tried to play the tribal card but seems to have been outsmarted by the saffron party for now.
Sulochana Rawat, who had switched sides from Congress to BJP just ahead of the bypolls, won Jobat, defeating Congress candidate Mahesh Patel by 6,104 votes. In 2018, Kalawati Bhuria of Congress had won the seat by 2,056 votes. The seat was considered a traditional stronghold of Congress, but the switch by Rawat, a former minister and three-time ex-MLA, made the difference for BJP.
The Prithvipur seat was also won by a turncoat for the BJP. Shishupal Yadav, who had contested the 2018 polls as Samajwadi Party candidate, won the seat on BJP ticket by 15,687 votes. Late Congress ex-minister Brajendra Singh Rathore's son Nitendra could not garner enough sympathy votes. Rathore senior had won the 2018 polls by 7,620, defeating Yadav.
The major shock for the BJP came from SC-reserved Raigaon seat where Pratima Bagri lost to Congress's Kalpana Verma by 12,290 votes. BJP hadn't lost the seat in the past 30 years but the party's decision not to give the ticket to the immediate family of deceased MLA Jugal Kishore Bagri backfired, sources said.
The BJP is also expected to review its performance in the Khandwa seat, where its lead margin reduced to around 80,000. Late MP Nandkumar Singh Chauhan had won the seat by over 2.73 lakh votes in 2019. That the voter turnout was 13 per cent lower compared to 2019, might be a factor.
Following the setback, former chief minister and MP Congress chief Kamal Nath said that the party respects the people's mandate and accepts it. “We will analyse the results deeply and introspect. However, during these bypolls, we fought money power, misuse of administrative and government machinery and goondaism by the ruling party, yet we managed to win one seat. We will analyse the result and get on with preparations for 2023 polls,” Nath said.
