Harish Dubey,
Gwalior, After his break-up with BSP, Engineer Phulasingh Baraiyya, who is responsible for establishing BSP in Madhya Pradesh, has eventually joined the Congress after crossing over several political parties.
Baraiyya may have raised eyebrows of those who know him closely for having joined hands with Congress all of a sudden but this Dalit leader has his own logic to justify his move. He says that in today’s situation, the biggest enemy of the entire population of the Dalit class and the country is BJP, and he has joined Congress unconditionally only to nullify BJP politically.
Meanwhile there are speculations in a section of the Congress from the entry of this Dalit leader, who was once strongly against Congress. There is a big natural reason for this. Actually Baraiyya is now the main contender for ticket from Bhind parliamentary seat of Chambal. It is being said that Baraiyya has been brought to the Congress only by Bhind’s hardline leader and minister, Dr. Govind Singh who has own interest behind it.
Govind Singh is well aware that if Morena mayor Ashok Argal who is putting in efforts to leave BJP for Congress, is successful in his endeavour, his whole sole influence on Bhind may be affected.
Former Home Minister Mahendra Bauddh, a confidante of Digvijay and former MP Barelal Jatav, close to Scindia are also putting in wholehearted efforts from a Lok Sabh ticket from Bhind. And Dr. Govind Singh is not in favour of the presence of both the leaders in Bhind political arena.
Argal’s entry into Cong depends on Govind Singh
The entry of Ashok Argal, five time BJP MP from both Bind and Morena seats, depends on the nod of Govind Singh. Argal has met Scindia in Delhi and has given his green signal. But Bhind’s stalwart Govinvd Singh has not evinced much interest in Argal’s entry in Congress.
However, Congress will go all out to benefit from the Dalit vote bank of Baraiyya. The quick entry of Baraiyya into Congress is seen as a measure to stop Argal’s entry.
Covering the districts of Bhind and Datia, the Bhind parliamentary constituency is one of the politically active Lok Sabha seats in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
This seat is reserved for candidates belonging to the scheduled castes. The Bhind Lok Sabha Constituency (constituency number 2) consists of 1,364,411 number of electorates in totality, of these 752,205 are males and 612,206 are females as the Election commission of India 2009 data suggests.
According to the Delimitation Commission of India, the legislative assembly segments in this parliamentary constituency were reorganised in 2008, to replace the assembly constituencies of Ron and Seondha with the assembly segments of Bhander and Sewda. Out of these segments, while Sewda, Bhander and Datia cover the entire district of Datia, the remaining five assembly segments are spread across the Bhind district. Bhind has a population of 17,03,005, as per the Census of India 2011.
The total number of electorates in the Bhind parliamentary constituency, as per the 2009 Lok Sabha elections is 13,71,252 people. Although, the Congress has won some elections from this constituency which witnessed the first elections in the year 1962, this seat has remained one of the most important vote-banks for the both parties.
While the BJP would want the Lok Sabha election to be a top-down election, contested on the name and track record of Narendra Modi, the Congress wants to put big names in BJP strongholds to tie down BJP firepower.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been the dominant force in Madhya Pradesh (MP) politics since 1989, when the party grew nationally on the back of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. Barring 1991, the BJP has got more seats than Congress in every election.
Before the state was split into two parts – Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the state had 40 Lok Sabha seats. The BJP won 27 seats in 1989 (Congress: 8), 12 seats in 1991 (Congress: 26), 27 seats in 1996 (Congress: 8), 30 seats in 1998 (Congress: 10), and 29 seats in 1999 (Congress: 11).
After the bifurcation, Madhya Pradesh retained 29 constituencies with 11 transferring to Chhattisgarh. In this era, the BJP won 25 seats in 2004 (Congress: 4), 16 seats in 2009 (Congress: 12), and 27 seats in 2014 (Congress: 2). In the past 30 years, Congress has only been a strong force in 1991 and 2009 in the Lok Sabha polls.
In fact, there are five seats, which the BJP has never lost since 1989. These seats are Bhind, Bhopal, Damoh, Indore and Vidisha.
However, the 2019 Lok Sabha election will be held in circumstances unfamiliar to MP BJP. In December 2018, the Congress ousted the BJP in Bhopal, narrowly winning the state polls and forming government with support from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Samajwadi Party (SP), and Independent members of legislative assembly.
Although the Congress won the 1998 assembly election, the BJP had dominated the 1998 and 1999 Lok Sabha polls. This time, Congress is looking to capitalise on its 2018 state win and intends to target the five seats, which have been with the BJP for three decades.
Congress is aiming to benefit from the infighting in the BJP and wrest this difficult seat from the saffron party by fielding Baraiyya. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Dr Bhagirath Prasad of the BJP easily defeated Imarti Devi of the Congress with almost 1.6 lakh votes. In 2018 state elections, the Chambal region overwhelmingly voted for the Congress.
Bhind was no exception, though the BJP won two assembly seats here. Imarti Devi herself pulled off a massive victory from Dabara in Gwalior. The assembly seats in the Bhind Lok Sabha had a triple whammy for the BJP. The BJP lost almost 11 per cent votes from the 2014 tally.
The new voters — about 86 thousand new enrollments — seem to have overwhelmingly voted for either the Bahujan Samaj Party or the Congress. The increased turnout also all went against the BJP. The BSP, SP, and various local strongmen have a big influence on this seat too. A lot will depend on candidate selection and potential defections across parties.