Congress wins Madhya Pradesh by-polls: What next for Shivraj Singh Chouhan?
Even as the BJP was nursing the wounds from by-poll defeats in Rajasthan, it suffered another blow in Madhya Pradesh. The results of the recent by-elections held on two Assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh have left the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government worried.
On both the seats - Mungaoli and Kolaras - the Congress has emerged victorious. These by-poll victories come on the back of the Congress win in Ater and Chitrakoot Assembly seats in the state last year. Both these seats were held by the Congress before they fell vacant.
मध्यप्रदेश की जागरूक जनता, मतदाताओं व कांग्रेस कार्यकर्ताओं को कोलारस - मुंगावली की शानदार जीत की बधाई।यह अहंकार तथा कुशासन की हार व उम्मीद की जीत है। पहले राजस्थान और अब मध्यप्रदेश ने साबित किया कि बदलाव की आहट दस्तक दे रही है।
— Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) March 1, 2018
मुंगावली और कोलारस विधानसभा क्षेत्र के उपचुनाव में विजयी कांग्रेस प्रत्याशियों को बधाई। लोकतंत्र में जनता जनार्दन है। मैं जनता के फैसले को स्वीकार करता हूँ। दोनों क्षेत्रों और राज्य के विकास के लिए मेरा समर्पण और परिश्रम सतत जारी रहेगा।
— ShivrajSingh Chouhan (@ChouhanShivraj) March 1, 2018
This is the fourth setback for Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and the BJP since Narendra Modi became the prime minister. And with the state ready to go to Assembly polls at the end of this year, it seems the loss is giving nightmares to Chouhan supporters.
काँग्रेस ने भले ही मुंगवाली में अधिकृत जीत हासिल की है परंतु अधिकतर जनता ने शिवराज सरकार को #दिल_से स्वीकारा हैभाजपा को मुंगवाली में +11% अधिक समर्थन 2013 के मुकाबले मिला है,वही कांग्रेस को -3% BJP: 47 % ( +11% swing)INC: 48 % ( - 3 % swing)Others: 5 % ( - 8 % swing) pic.twitter.com/DmSBCr69sR
— BJP MadhyaPradesh (@BJP4MP) March 1, 2018
It is generally believed that in by-elections, the ruling party usually has an upper hand and dominates the election results. But the recent by-poll results in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh has busted this belief.
The BJP's defeat in Madhya Pradesh started from November 24, 2015, when within a year and half of Modi assuming prime ministership in 2014, the BJP lost its Lok Sabha seat in the by-election.
The Congress wrested the Ratlam-Jhabua Lok Sabha seat from the BJP. The Ratlam-Jhabua parliamentary seat had fallen vacant after the demise of BJP MP Dileep Singh Bhuria.
The party then put a bet on his daughter Nirmala Bhuria. But she lost the election to former Union minister (Congress) Kantilal Bhuria, who won by a convincing margin of 88,832 votes. The defeat on this seat was all the more shocking because the BJP governments were both at the Centre and in the state, and the usually much-anticipated sympathy for the BJP candidate, could not ensure a win for the saffron party.
In the event of a seat falling vacant on the death of sitting MLA/MP, the parties usually select the nearest relatives as the candidates and try to play the sympathy card during the election. Significantly, CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan had held 27 rallies in six days for the Ratlam-Jhabua seat, but none of the factors worked in the BJP’s favour.
In April last year, the by-elections to the Atar Assembly seat too resulted in the defeat of the BJP from the Congress. In November 2017, the Congress continued its winning streak in by-polls when it won the Chitrakoot Assembly seat. In Chitrakoot, Congress candidate Nilanshu Chaturvedi defeated BJP candidate Shankar Dayal Tripathi by 14,333 votes.
The BJP’s defeat in Madhya Pradesh by-polls came after the setback that the saffron party suffered in Rajasthan. On February 2, the BJP lost the Alwar and Ajmer Lok Sabha seats, and the Mandalgarh Assembly seat in Rajasthan by-elections. The biggest victory for the Congress came in Alwar, where Karan Singh Yadav defeated BJP's Jaswant Singh Yadav, a cabinet minister in the Raje government, by over 1.56 lakh votes. While Congress’s Raghu Sharma defeated BJP's Ram Swaroop Lamba in Ajmer, in the Mandalgarh Assembly constituency, Congress candidate Vivek Dhark Vivek Dhakar trounced BJP's Shakti Singh Hada by 12,976 votes.