- Indication of allotment of tickets to the sitting MLAs from Indore district
- BJP’s second list can also have names of only MLAs
Milind Muzumdar, Indore
In the first list of the BJP released on August 17, Madhu Verma is conducting the survey on his own as per the instructions for the Rau assembly seat only. All these nine MLAs of Gujarat will remain in Indore district till 28 August. On the other hand, in Congress too, private professional teams of Rahul Gandhi and Kamal Nath are conducting separate surveys. Congress is going to distribute tickets based on the survey of these two. According to sources, the Congress has shortlisted 66 single names. Their announcement is possible this month itself. On the other hand, the second list of BJP is likely to be released by 30 August.
BJP’s election in-charge Union Minister Bhupendra Yadav and State Election Management Committee Chairman Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar have been in Bhopal for three consecutive days to participate in the meetings. These leaders will finalize the second list after continuous discussion with other top state BJP leaders. Meanwhile, by August 28, they will get the feedback report prepared by the migrant MLAs. The party can release the second list by August 30 after Amit Shah’s approval. According to sources, candidates for the seats lost in 2018 will also be announced in the second list. It is possible that there may be an announcement to repeat the existing MLAs of some strong seats. If this happens, BJP will first announce candidates for area number 2 and area number 4. It is indicated that Ramesh Mendola and Malini Gaur will be repeated again on these two seats respectively. It was being claimed that the state president Kamal Nath would release the Congress list before the BJP, but Kamal Nath’s problem is that all decision-making powers have gone out of his hands and have gone into the hands of Rahul Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi has deployed Randeep Singh Surjewala as chief election strategist in the state and Bhanwar Jitendra Singh for ticket distribution. In such a situation, Congress is not able to take decisions at a fast pace.
Sources say that the Congress has prepared 66 single names. These will be cleared in the very first meeting of the Screening Committee. Most of these names are of the present MLAs. If this happens then the names of all the three sitting Congress MLAs from Indore district will be in the first list. In Indore, Vishal Patel from Depalpur, Sanjay Shukla from area number 1 and Jitu Patwari from Rau seat are MLAs. The names of these three are likely to be in the first list of the Congress.
Indore is a very awakened and important district from a political point of view. Congress and BJP are definitely looking for a qualified candidate through surveys and other methods, but seeing the competition and factionalism among the claimants here, it is clear that ticket distribution is not going to be easy for both the parties. Digvijay Singh and Kamal Nath camps are prominent in the politics of the district. Leaders like Jeetu Patwari, Satyanarayan Patel, Vipin Wankhede, Antar Singh Darbar, Sadashiv Yadav, Premchand Guddu, Surjit Singh are considered in the Digvijay Singh camp. Whereas in Kamal Nath camp there are leaders like Sanjay Shukla, Vishal Patel, Sajjan Singh Verma, Vinay Bakliwal, Swapnil Kothari, Golu Agnihotri. Old Congress leaders believe that the party’s survey is just a show off. The ticket is given to that candidate whose leader is able to get the ticket. Such Congressmen believe that the first list of the party will also be based on factionalism. The way Digvijay Singh has been taken in the CWC. It is certain that his supporters will get a significant number of tickets in Indore district.
The problem of factionalism is also in the BJP. Here too leaders like Sumitra Tai, Kailash Vijayvargiya, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Narendra Singh Tomar and Jyotiraditya Scindia have different supporters. Talking about the claimants, leaders like Ramesh Mendola, Akash Vijayvargiya, Gaurav Randive are with Kailash Vijayvargiya, while Malini Gaur, Sudarshan Gupta, Narendra Singh Tomar do politics. Leaders like Shankar Lalwani, Madhu Verma and Mahendra Hardia are considered close to Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. While leaders like Ajay Singh Naruka, Sudhir Dedge, Anju Makhija are considered supporters of Sumitra Tai. After the defection of 2020, Jyotiraditya Scindia’s supporters are also active in Indore district, among them are leaders like Tulsi Silavat, Pramod Tandon, Yogesh Gendar, Mohan Singh Sengar. Although BJP’s factionalism is at the local level and it can be easily met when the time comes. Due to the BJP being a worker-based party, the top men of the organization easily coordinate with the leaders, but the Congress finds it difficult in this regard.
Migrant MLAs of Gujarat are conducting survey in Indore district
State and city units have started working on the instructions of the central organization. Along with this, on the instructions of the party, the exercise has started for the election assessment by the MLAs of other states, the candidate’s claim, to test the position of the party. The MLAs of Gujarat are assessing the 9 assembly seats in Indore district. Viramgam Ahmedabad MLA Hardik Patel, Bhoi Vadodara MLA Shailesh Bhai Mehta, Sayajiganj Vadodara MLA Keyur Rokadiya, Bapunagar Ahmedabad MLA Dinesh Kushwaha, Dariyapur MLA Kaushikbhai Jain, Nadiad MLA Pankaj Bhai Desai, Savli Vadodara MLA Ketanbhai Inamdar, Vatva MLA Babu Singh Jadhav and Borsad seat Anand MLA Ramanbhai Solanki have come for the assessment of various assembly constituencies of Indore district. Field work has started from Monday by BJP’s migrant MLAs from Gujarat, Maharashtra and other states for 230 assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh, including nine assembly seats in Indore. In the schedule made by these MLAs, formal emphasis has been laid on increasing the reach of the workers, meeting them and bringing them with them. That is, it is clear that BJP’s strategy is two-fold, going to the field to test its claimants in the assembly and at the same time see how strong the opposition is and start efforts from now itself to eliminate their strength. There is an emphasis on calling the leaders and workers of the opposition in public meetings and also that the BJP migrant MLA must hold discussions with all of them. According to sources, the party may have declared candidates for 39 seats including Indore’s Rau, but this is not the final list.
