E-Paper
Major battle for Cong citadel Chhindwara
By fielding Union Minister Prahlad Patel, BJP has made its determination to defeat Cong strongman Kamal Nath quite clear.
When Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti recently declared here that sitting Congress MP Kamal Nath would have to go to Ayodhya to undertake kar seva soon after the Lok Sabha polls, people took her remark as a joke.
But by fielding Prahlad Patel, a high-profile BJP stalwart of the Mahakoshal region from here, she has made her determination to defeat Congress strongman quite clear.
Chhindwara is one LS constituency that has been a Congress citadel all through. Even in the strong anti-Congress wave of 1977, it was one of the two seats in the Hindi-speaking belt that remained with the Congress.
Since 1980 when he first set foot in MP politics, Kamal Nath lost only one election to former CM Sunderlal Patwa in 1997 only to come back the following year. In 1996, the Congress leader, who was embroiled in the hawala scam, had to withdraw and got a ticket for his wife Alka who won the seat.
This time, however, Chhindwara promises to be witness to one of the fiercest election battles.
Bordering Maharashtra, this tribal-dominated constituency, saw the BJP making deep inroads for the first time in history in the December Assembly polls. The BJP won seven out of eight Assembly constituencies. The eighth — Amarwada — was bagged by the little known Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP).
The BJP has obviously sensed the mood of the people which is why it shifted Patel to Chhindwara.
Kamal Nath's problems would be compounded by the presence of GGP candidate Hartaf Shah Tigram, a Gond tribal from the neighbouring district.
Congress insiders feel that the failure of their party to strike a pact with the GGP in the Mahakoshal region will also damage his prospects,
L.K. Advani's Bharat Uday Yatra entered MP from Chhindwara and launched Patel's poll campaign, a politically significant move.
It appears now that Uma Bharti had her eyes set on Chhindwara for long. Besides launching her Sanklap Rath Yatra before the Assembly elections last year from Jam Sawali, she has also kept charge of the district after becoming CM, a clear indication of what she aims at.
