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Rebels may queer the pitch in Madhya Pradesh

By Our Staff Correspondent

BHOPAL, OCT. 12. The stage is all set for tomorrow's by-elections in Nohata and Balaghat Assembly constituencies in Madhya Pradesh.

The main contest for the Nohata Assembly seat is between the former State Minister, Ratnesh Solomon, who is trying to recapture this seat on a Congress ticket and his arch Bharatiya Janata Party rival, Dashrath Lodhi.

Dashrath Lodhi is a senior BJP worker, who is banking heavily on the strong Lodhi vote bank in Nohata. The party also ignored the claim of former Union Minister and Uma Bharti loyalist, Prahlad

Patel here to field Mr. Lodhi who has a good image as a local party worker.

According to the State unit BJP spokesperson, Deepak Vijayvargiya, the presence of the Gondwana

Gantantra Party and Bahujan Samaj Party candidates would substantially mar the prospects of Mr. Solomon as the Congress party, GGP and BSP have a common support base in this area. He said it is because the Congress had chosen to seek the support of Laxmi Bai, wife of the GGP candidate, who had started going from door to door in the last phase of campaigning seeking votes for the Congress candidate instead of her husband, Hariram Singh.

While the by-election for the Nohata seat has become prestigious for both the BJP and Congress party, electioneering has been a low-key affair in Balaghat.

The Chief Minister, Babulal Gaur, was campaigning in Nohata for two days till the end of campaign

yesterday. The former Chief Minister, Uma Bharti, and over a dozen State Ministers have also been engaged in hectic campaigning in Nohata. From the Congress side, the Union Ministers, Kamalnath and Kantilal Bhuria, along with the State PCC Chief, Subhash Yadav, have been heading the campaign for their party candidate in the Nohata constituency.

In Balaghat, the fight is mainly between Kailash Agrawal of the BJP and Ashok Saraswar of the Congress. The State Janata Party president and former MLA, Kankar Munjare and GGP's Hirasan Uike are also in the poll fray in Balaghat along with the BSP candidate.

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Rebels may queer the pitch in Madhya Pradesh

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