Caste equations, three-way ghts spice up battle for Gwalior-Chambal region in M.P.
MORENA/GWALIOR
With just a day to go for the third round of polling of the Lok Sabha election, battle lines are drawn in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior-Chambal region with caste equations and triangular ghts spicing up the contests.
The region comprises the Morena, Bhind (Scheduled Caste) and Gwalior seats, and parts of the Guna Lok Sabha constituency. Other Backward Classes (OBCs) form the largest chunk of the electorate here, followed by the Scheduled Castes (SCs). However, in Morena, the Kshatriya community has been in a deciding position thanks to political rivals Tomars and Sikarwars.
The BJP currently holds all three seats, but the Congress
draws its hopes from its performance in the Assembly election held just six months ago. In Gwalior and Bhind, the Congress won four out of eight Assembly segments each, while in Morena, it won ve out of eight.
Meanwhile, the Bahujan Samaj Party, which has had a signicant presence in parts of the Gwalior-Chambal belt, has made the contests triangular in Bhind and Morena.
The Morena constituency has been with the BJP since 1991 and is a stronghold of Assembly Speaker and former Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, who won the Lok Sabha poll from here in 2019 and is currently an MLA from Dimani seat of the Lok Sabha segment. The BJP this time has elded his loyalist and former MLA Shivmangal Singh Tomar. The Congress
has elded former BJP MLA Satyapal Singh Sikarwar alias ‘Neetu’, whose father Gajraj Singh Sikarwar was a two-term BJP MLA, while the BSP has given the ticket to an industrialist, Ramesh Garg.
In Gwalior, the BJP has elded former MLA Bharat Singh Kushwaha to take on the Congress candidate and former MLA Praveen Pathak. Both had lost in the 2023 Assembly polls with close margins.
In Bhind, the contest is between the BJP’s sitting MP Sandhya Rai and Congress MLA Phool Singh Baraiya. The Congress last won the seat in 1984 but is hopeful of various factors working in its favour. They are Mr. Baraiya’s hold on Dalits in the region and an anti-incumbency sentiment against Ms. Rai.