Lok Sabha Elections Phase 3 polling tomorrow: Shivraj ‘Mamaji’ Chouhan’s road to Delhi goes through BJP bastion Vidisha

Sixty-five-year-old Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the longest-serving Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, is contesting the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 from the Vidisha seat in the (BJP)-ruled state. 

Vidisha will vote in the of Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday, May 7. 

Chouhan is not new to Vidisha. He has entered the fray from the seat after two decades. Chouhan won the Vidisha Lok Sabha seat for the first time in 1991 and continued to win it consecutively until 2004.

In 2005, Chouhan became the for the first time. He continued as the CM for the next three terms until December 2023, leading the BJP to another resounding victory in the state assembly polls. The saffron party replaced Chouhan with as Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister. It was during his tenure as Madhya Pradesh CM that Chouhan earned the title‘Mamaji' , primarily because of his government's welfare schemes targeting women and girls. 

“This is my family. I am not a politician. We fight and live together like a family. There is no neta, security, nothing. There are only nephews and nieces, brother and sisters. There is only love," Shivraj Singh Chouhan told during his recent campaign.

In the battle for Vidisha, Chouhan is up against Congress veteran , who has won the seat twice before, in 1980 and 1984. If Chouhan is back in the Vidisha fight after two decades, Sharma is in the fray after 33 years. Sharma was defeated by former Prime Minister by over one lakh votes in 1991 Lok Sabha elections. 

In the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, BJP’s won the seat with a margin of 5,03,084 votes defeating Congress’s Shailendra Patel. In the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections, BJP’s Sushma Swaraj won the seat for the second time in a row, defeating Congress candidate Lakshman Singh by a margin of four