MP Chunav 2023: Less than a month is left for Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections. Meanwhile, everyone’s eyes are fixed on Indore-1 seat. Indore-1 is also included among the popular seats due to the candidature of political veterans. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state has fielded its national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya (67) from this seat, after which the party’s current MLA Sanjay Shukla has had to change his strategy on this seat held by the Congress, which is a Trying their luck again from Indore-1. During the last assembly elections of 2018, Sanjay Shukla was the only winning candidate of Congress in all the five seats in the urban area of Indore and the remaining four seats went to BJP. However, in the last Municipal Corporation elections of the year 2022, Shukla had to face defeat at the hands of BJP candidate Pushyamitra Bhargava for the post of Mayor.
Now in the assembly elections, Shukla is facing BJP’s national general secretary Vijayvargiya. Changing his strategy, Shukla is now calling Vijayvargiya a ‘guest’, placing special emphasis on solving caste equations, bringing veteran leaders to his area for election campaign and being local himself. BJP has given ticket to Vijayvargiya, who belongs to Vaishya community, after a long gap of 10 years. Congress has again expressed confidence in its sitting MLA Sanjay Shukla (49) and made him its candidate. Shukla of Brahmin community is a native of Indore-1 area, while Vijayvargiya is a resident of Indore-2 area. The role of people from Brahmin and Yadav communities plays an important role in deciding the election result of Indore-1 region with a total of 3.64 lakh voters.
Shukla had to change his election strategy to retain control.
Due to the sudden entry of veteran Vijayvargiya into the fray, Shukla had to change his election strategy to retain Congress’ hold on this seat. Sources close to Shukla said that Congress is planning afresh to solve the caste equation. Along with this, preparations are also being made for a series of meetings of national level leaders of the opposition. Shukla, who is calling himself a local candidate and Vijayvargiya as a “guest” in the election campaign, is using the phrase “not a leader, but a son” for himself. On the other hand, Vijayvargiya is trying to present himself before the voters as the leader of entire Indore as a counter to this move of his main election rival.
Vijayvargiya, famous for his fondness of singing bhajans in public programs, is trying to win the trust of voters with promises of rapid development of Indore-1 and curbing the illegal drug trade. On the other hand, Shukla, who has organized many religious programs and bhandars during the last five years, is trying his best by claiming to constantly stand by the happiness and sorrow of the people of his constituency. Vijayvargiya has not lost any election so far in his 40 year long political career. He has won the assembly elections six consecutive times between 1990 and 2013 from different seats of Indore district.
Many challenges before Vijayvargiya in the election battle of Indore-1
Senior journalist Kirti Rana, who has been keeping an eye on the local equations of politics for years, told PTI that Vijayvargiya has the ambition of becoming the Chief Minister of the state. These days he is also indicating this through his statements. But according to Rana, the challenges facing Vijayvargiya in the election battle of Indore-1 are no less. He said that the BJP high command has unexpectedly made Vijayvargiya its candidate, ignoring the local leaders who have been claiming the ticket from Indore-1 for a long time. This time the issue of local candidates is gaining prominence in the elections. Therefore, if there is internal conflict during voting, Vijayvargiya may have to face electoral loss.
Let us tell you that voting will be held on 230 assembly seats of Madhya Pradesh on November 17, while the counting of votes will take place on December 3.