Elections 2024: Congress 'Mukt' MP or Congress 'Yukt' BJP in MP?

Sources in the BJP claim that there are some pockets in MP where ‘Congress’ leaders are calling all the shots.

MP Congress leaders Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh.

(Photo: Chetan Bhakuni/The Quint)

It started with a coup in March 2020 when Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia joined the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) along with his supporters. The chief minister at the time, Kamal Nath, had to resign.

No one knew that this would become a political trend. The BJP continued to benefit as more and more Congress leaders embraced the saffron fold.

The trend is active to date. Just two days before the third phase of polling in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on 7 May, Nirmala Sapre, a sitting Congress MLA from Bina, joined the BJP.

And while the third phase of polling was underway in the state, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in an election rally in Khargone, mentioned the names of the Congress leaders who had joined the BJP and the extent to which they spoke badly of the grand old party after changing the political hue.

Meanwhile, despite the BJP’s hectic efforts to ensure an increase in poll percentage, a continuing decline in the same has alarmed the party. Home Minister Amit Shah has already cracked the whip, saying that ministers will have to face consequences if the poll percentage declines in their region.

Referring to the decline in poll percentage, a seasoned BJP leader in MP claimed to me, “This is too much, now we have reached a situation when the law of diminishing returns of economics has come into play” (which states that in a production process, as one input variable is increased, there will be a point at which the per unit output will start to decrease).

Narottam Mishra, the convener of the 'New Joining Toli' of the BJP, a special unit of the party formed for new entrants, claimed that 2.58 lakh people, most of them from Congress, have joined the party since February this year.

In the last few months, among some prominent Congress party leaders, three-time Rajya Sabha member and former Union Minister Suresh Pachauri, 72, joined the BJP. Another MLA from the Vijaypur seat, Ramniwas Rawat, left the Congress party.

Akshay Kanti Bam, a Congress candidate from the Indore parliamentary seat, also withdrew his candidature. Reopening a 17-year-old crime case and adding section 307 of the IPC (attempt to murder) to it was the reason that allegedly prompted Bam to withdraw from the election. He, however, denied this allegation. Kailash Vijayvargiya, former general secretary of the BJP and a minister in Madhya Pradesh worked hard to have a Surat-like political equation in Indore as I explained here.

The Congress candidate may have withdrawn from the race but few independents could not be coerced into quitting. So, the BJP candidate is not going to be an unopposed winner.

Sumitra Mahajan, eight-time BJP MP from Indore and former Lok Sabha speaker expressed her displeasure over the development. She said, “The party was already winning the seat and there was no need to do this. Many people have been calling me saying they won’t vote for BJP and will push the NOTA (None of the above) button”.

Polling will be held in Indore during the fourth phase on 15 May.

In Sagar Constituency, Senior BJP Leaders Feeling Sidelined

Sources in the BJP claim that there are some pockets in Madhya Pradesh where ‘Congress’ leaders are calling the shots, and the original BJP workers and senior MLAs, including some former ministers, have been sidelined.

After the second phase of polling, one such leader in Sagar division told me, hum toh ghar baithe hain, unhi se kaam kara lo (we are sitting at home, let them (Congress leaders who joined BJP) do the work).

Two party leaders — Bhupendra Singh and Gopal Bhargava, both powerful ministers in the Shivraj government in Sagar — feel sidelined, as per the same sources. Govind Singh Rajput, a Scindia supporter, who joined the party in 2020, is dominating the play.

Bhupendra Singh was conspicuously absent when the Congress MLA from Bina, Nirmala Sapre, joined the party in a programme held in Rahatgarh. Sapre, it is believed, joined the BJP after Arunodaya Choube, formerly a Kamal Nath supporter, talked to her. In Sagar’s politics, Choube and Bhupendra Singh are arch-rivals contesting elections against each other.

“Three out of eight Vidhan Sabha seats of the Sagar Lok Sabha seat belong to ex-Congressmen. There are other leaders from Congress as well at the Panchayat level. Sagar is now dominated by Congress turncoats leading to political upheavals”, a senior BJP leader explained to me. Scindia himself is a force to reckon with and is being seen as the party’s future in MP, threatening the likes of Shivraj among others, sources maintained.

“It might not be a Congress mukt (free from) Madhya Pradesh but definitely a Congress yukt (inclusive) BJP in the state”, a party leader quipped. “Our leaders in Delhi must understand that we should put a full stop to this trend,” he added.

(The author is a senior journalist based in Madhya Pradesh. This is an opinion article and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)