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Lok Sabha elections 2019: BJP holds all seven MP seats voting in phase 5
The constituencies voting on May 6 include three out of four seats in Bundelkhand region of Tikamgarh, Damoh and Khajuraho, two in Satna and Rewa of Vindhya region and central Madhya Pradesh’s Betul and Hoshangabad.
Current and former Union ministers, an RSS man, a member of a royal family and a sitting lawmaker will try their luck in seven parliamentary constituencies, which go to polls on May 6 in Madhya Pradesh in the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha election.
This is the second phase of polling in the central state, which sends 29 members to the Lok Sabha, after six parliamentary constituencies voted in the first round on April 29. The voter turnout was recorded at 74.88%, higher than the last election in 2014.
The constituencies voting on May 6 include three out of four seats in Bundelkhand region of Tikamgarh, Damoh and Khajuraho, two in Satna and Rewa of Vindhya region and central Madhya Pradesh’s Betul and Hoshangabad. Tikamgarh is reserved for members of Scheduled Castes and Betul for Scheduled Tribes.
Read: Full coverage of Lok Sabha elections 2019
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won all these seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. In the last year’s assembly election, the BJP’s tally was reduced to 14 seats from 20 in 2013 while Congress seats increased from six in 2013 to 10 in the Bundelkhand region.
In the Vindhya region, the BJP showed tremendous improvement in its performance by winning 24 out of the 30 seats while in the central part of the state the seats declined by six for the ruling party in the Centre and Congress’ tally increased by seven.
In this phase, 1.19 crore voters will decide the fate of 110 candidates in these constituencies.
Read: All you need to know about Madhya Pradesh
All three seats in Bundelkhand are witnessing key contests.
From Tikamgarh seat, a sitting member of Parliament and minister of state in Narendra Modi cabinet Virendra Kumar has been fielded again by the BJP as its candidate. He was re-elected to the Lok Sabha for the sixth consecutive term in 2014. He has been representing Tikamgarh since 2009.
He is pitted against Congress candidate Kiran Ahirwar, who is a secretary in the grand old party’s women’s wing and contesting the election for the first time. The Samajwadi Party has fielded an ex-MLA RD Prajapati, who defected to the SP from the BJP just ahead of the election.
The Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party have forged an alliance in Madhya Pradesh as well after Uttar Pradesh.
Prahlad Patel is the BJP candidate from Damoh seat. Patel, an ex-Union minister who won this seat in 2014, has been repeated as the party’s candidate. He is facing Congress’ Pratap Singh Lodhi, an ex-MLA who lost the 2018 assembly elections. The BSP has fielded Jittu Singh Badal from the constituency.
The contest in Khajuraho is a battle of prestige for the Sangh Parivar. The BJP has fielded its state general secretary VD Sharma with a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) background. Sharma, who was associated with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) for a long time before he was sent to the BJP by the RSS, is making his electoral debut.
He will lock horns with Kavita Singh, the Congress candidate known as Maharani Kavita Singh Natiraja in the area. Kavita comes from a royal family of Chhatarpur district and is presently local urban body’s president in Khajuraho. Her husband Vikram Singh Natiraja is a Congress MLA from Rajnagar, one of the assembly segments under the Khajuraho parliamentary constituency.
The Samajwadi Party has fielded Veer Singh Patel from the seat.
The other seats and its main contestants include the BJP’s Ganesh Singh, Rajaram Tripathi of the Congress and BSP leader Achchhe Lal Kushwaha in Satna. In Rewa, Janardan Mishra of the BJP, Congress’ Siddharth Tiwari and BSP’s Vikas Singh Patel are in the fray. Durgadas Uike of the BJP, Ramu Tekam of the Congress and BSP’s Ashok Bhalavi are contesting in Betul.
Hoshangabad will also see a triangular fight among sitting MP Rao Uday Pratap Singh of the BJP, Congress leader Shailendra Diwan and MP Choudhary of the BSP.
Madhya Pradesh will vote for the rest of the 16 seats in the next two rounds of Lok Sabha election in the sixth phase on May 12 and seventh on May 19. The votes will be counted on May 23.
