BJP leaves no breathing room for Congress in Madhya Pradesh

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) not only made a clean sweep in all the 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh, it even wrested former Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Kamal Nath’s stronghold, Chhindwara, which has remained elusive for the ruling party for decades.

The BJP’s win in the 2023 assembly elections when it got a landslide majority of 163 seats was a shot in the arm for the party’s political prospects in the state.

The BJP did not allow the Congress, now steered by state president Jitu Patwari, any breathing space as it went onto induct several thousand leaders to its fold stitching the narrative of the opposition party boycotting the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony, a move seen as a disaster by many Congress leaders considering the state mostly comprises socially conservative voters.

Reacting to the party’s defeat, Congress President Jitu Patwari told The Indian Express, “It was natural that we would find it difficult to give a strong challenge (to the BJP). We are working towards building our organisation.”

The BJP while focusing on strengthening its hold over tribal seats with the help of its welfare schemes also didn’t shy away from playing the identity politics card, celebrating tribal icons and renaming important infrastructure and universities after them.

The massive beneficiary outreach programmes helped the BJP win the tribal-dominated seats such as Shahdol, Mandla, Balaghat, Chhindwara and Betul by the margins of over 1 lakh votes.

Chhindwara, no more Congress bastion

One of the main seats where the Congress will feel the pinch of defeat is Chhindwara from where party veteran Kamal Nath’s son Nakul Nath lost to BJP’s Bunty Vivek Sahu by a margin of 1,13,618 votes.

Most of Nath’s closest allies had