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Keen contests ahead

Staff Correspondent

Vidisha and Malehra by-elections on October 30

BHOPAL: The Vidisha and Malehra by-elections in Madhya Pradesh, scheduled for October 30, will be an acid test not only for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the State but also for former Chief Minister Uma Bharti and her newly formed outfit— Bharatiya Janshakti.

The Election Commission has announced the poll schedule for the Vidisha Lok Sabha constituency and the Malehra Assembly seat. The by-elections will be notified on October 6. Polling will be held on October 30 and the results will be declared on November 2.

Both these elections are bound to be high-profile contests as the Vidisha seat has been vacated by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and the Malehra seat was being represented in the State Assembly by former Chief Minister Uma Bharti. She quit this seat when she left the BJP to form the Bharatiya Janshakti.

This past Thursday the members of the State BJP executive committee were told by the party general secretary in charge of Madhya Pradesh affairs, Ananth Kumar, that they would have to chalk out a strategy to win both the Vidisha and Malehra by-elections to establish that Madhya Pradesh is a BJP citadel and no individual holds sway when it comes to voters. There have been prolonged discussions within the party about potential candidates for the Vidisha by-election. The names doing the rounds in BJP circles for Vidisha

include Varun Gandhi and Sushma Swaraj. But a big section within the ruling party, especially from the Vidisha area, has been strongly supporting the idea of fielding Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan's wife Sadhna Singh.

Mr. Chauhan has categorically gone on record recently stating that he is not in favour of his wife contesting the by-election. Putting a lid on the issue, he also said that it is for the party to decide the candidate.

In a related development, a pre-poll survey that was conducted recently at the initiative of the State BJP has concluded that Ms. Singh is more popular than any other probable candidate for Vidisha. The BJP also knows that Vidisha would become a tough contest if Ms. Bharti decides to contest from here.

The by-election for the Malehra Assembly seat would also be a battle of wits between the BJP and the

Bharatiya Janshakti. But even the Congress would not allow this election to be reduced to a contest

merely between the BJP and the Bharatiya Janshakti. According to information received here, the Congress workers in the Malehra area have reason to feel confident at this juncture as they have managed to

bring on their side Kapoor Chand Ghuwara, who represents the dominant Jain community and had bagged

the second highest votes in Malehra contesting as a CPI candidate in 1998. He had lost narrowly to Ms.

Bharti's brother Swami Prasad Lodhi in that election. The predicament in the Bharatiya Janshakti circles is

that Malehra would be a cakewalk for Ms. Bharti but any other candidate from their party would find it tough

when it comes to educating the electorate about the new election symbol.

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Keen contests ahead

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