India Today

A SEMI WIN IN A SEMI FINAL

- By Rahul Noronha

The media and party leaders dubbed it the ‘semi-finals’ before the 2023 assembly poll in Madhya Pradesh, and the results of elections to 413 municipal bodies—held after a delay of two and a half years—justified the pre-bout hype. Presidents of the 99 municipali­ties and 298 nagar parishads will be elected later by councillor­s through indirect elections, but even if just the direct elections held for choosing mayors of 16 municipal corporatio­ns were to be considered, the results held enough scope for endless analysis—and introspect­ion, for both the BJP and the Congress.

All 16 mayoral contests had been won by the BJP in 2015. This time, the saffron party managed to retain only nine, and the Congress took its tally from zero to 5. The BJP’s defeat in Gwalior, Morena and Jabalpur was especially embarrassi­ng. The Congress has won Gwalior after a gap of 57 years, and that it comes after the exit of the local big gun—Union minister Jyotiradit­ya Scindia—must gladden it. Narendra Singh Tomar, another Union minister, also hails from Gwalior region, as do other BJP biggies. The Congress also won Chhindwara, PCC president Kamal Nath’s home turf, after a long time, and Rewa, headquarte­rs of the Vindhya region where the Congress had been decimated in the 2018 assembly election. The grand old party nearly won Burhanpur and Ujjain too, losing to the BJP by less than 1,000 votes.

The BJP can take solace in the fact that it has a majority among councillor­s in most municipal corporatio­ns and

that it improved its tally in the tier 2 and tier 3 bodies where it won a vast majority of seats. But how did the party, which has historical­ly had a strong presence in urban areas, lose key mayoral contests? Also, how will the outcome impact the urban area seats in the assembly election, especially since they make up around a third of the 230 seats in MP?

Political watchers suggest that the BJP botched up the ticket distributi­on in the municipal corporatio­ns.

In Jabalpur, Congress candidate Jagat Bahadur Annu, “a people’s man” who has risen to the top through the exacting municipal politics channel, was a favourite from the start. In contrast, the BJP candidate seemed to have been thrust down from the top. In Gwalior, intense squabbling marked the ticket choices with the Scindia and Tomar groups pulling in different directions. Interestin­gly, the person who delivered Gwalior to the Congress after five decades—Congress MLA Satish Sikarwar, whose wife Shobha won the seat—is an import from the BJP. Rewa seems to have gone to the Congress owing to the ‘neglect’ of the region in representa­tion in the cabinet.

The saffron party’s famed election machinery went missing during the polls. Its much-touted booth-level strategy too was clearly not working, especially in BJP stronghold­s like Bhopal, which were marked by low polling. On polling

day, voters were reportedly running around looking for their names on the voters’ list at their old booths, only to find them struck off with no one in the party the wiser on where their names had gone. The BJP still won Bhopal and Indore by strong margins, but not before some stress owing to the low polling and mismanagem­ent. It lost the Katni mayoral contest to a party rebel who had been denied the ticket. Katni is part of Khajuraho LS seat, represente­d by BJP state chief V.D. Sharma.

The municipal elections also marked the entry of parties other than the BJP and the Congress. AAP bagged the Singrauli municipal corporatio­n, with Rani Agarwal winning the mayor’s seat in a triangular contest. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal had held a roadshow in Singrauli, an indicator that AAP felt it was within striking distance. The Congress’s narrow defeat at Burhanpur, by a mere 600 votes, came amid allegation­s that Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM ensured the BJP’s victory as its “B team”. The AIMIM polled over 10,000 votes here and almost 10,000 in neighbouri­ng Khandwa—both towns border Maharashtr­a where it has a presence. The AIMIM won four councillor seats in Jabalpur, Khandwa and Burhanpur.

While the AIMIM’s presence in MP may be heartening for the BJP, assuming that it eats into Congress votes, AAP’s presence may not have the same effect—it is likely to impact both the BJP and Congress, but more so the ruling party. Besides winning Singrauli, the AAP candidate in Gwalior polled 45,762 votes, while five corporator­s were elected in Singrauli and 11 councillor­s in 10 tier-three nagar parishads.

With its improved tally, should the Congress think all is well? “Elections are won with good candidates and party support,” says political analyst Girija Shankar. “The Congress won in seats where it had better candidates and leaders backing them. For success in 2023, the Congress will have to get the latter right.” Both the BJP and the Congress celebrated after the results, with PM Narendra Modi and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi equally congratula­ting party workers for a “victory”. That itself speaks of how open it was. ■

THE BJP’S FAMED POLL MACHINERY AND BOOTH-LEVEL STRATEGIES WENT MISSING IN THE MUNICIPAL POLL

 ?? ANI ?? RESURGENT? MP Congress chief Kamal Nath’s roadshow
in Bhopal, July 4
ANI RESURGENT? MP Congress chief Kamal Nath’s roadshow in Bhopal, July 4
 ?? ?? MISSTEPS? CM Shivraj Chouhan’s poll wagon in Bhopal, Jun. 29
MISSTEPS? CM Shivraj Chouhan’s poll wagon in Bhopal, Jun. 29

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