MP: THE JHABUA BREATHER
The bypoll victory will also boost the party’s morale
In a keenly-watched byelection, the Congress wrested the Jhabua assembly seat from the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, taking its tally in the 230-member House to 115, the exact half-way mark. Former Union minister Kantilal Bhuria defeated the BJP’s Bhanu Bhuria by 27,000plus votes. The win is a shot in the arm for the Congress government, propped up as it is by four Independents, one SP and two BSP MLAs.
An adverse outcome for the Congress would have emboldened sections within the BJP that want to destabilise the Kamal Nath government. The Congress had seen a string of defeats in Jhabua, a tribal region in western MP. Kantilal’s son Vikrant had lost to the BJP’s G.S. Damor in the 2018 assembly poll. This May, Damor defeated Kantilal in the Lok Sabha election. With the assembly seat falling vacant, a bypoll had to be held.
The Jhabua win will allow the Nath government some leeway in making decisions. It will also attenuate the impression that the 10-month-old government is still struggling to find its feet. “The Jhabua verdict shows people are disappointed with the BJP, not only in the state but at the Centre as well,” the chief minister said after the bypoll verdict.
Retaining Jhabua would have given the BJP a psychological edge. Former CM Shivraj Chouhan spent considerable time campaigning for the BJP candidate, while leader of the opposition Gopal Bhargava and BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya also pitched in. However, the Congress had better strategy at the end of the day; it managed to rein in rebel former Congress MLA Xavier Meda, who in 2018 singlehandedly ensured Vikrant’s defeat by eating into Congress votes.