MP's 9 seats to go poll today, fate of two ex-royals Digvijaya, Scindia to be decided in people's court

Bhopal: Nine Lok Sabha seats of Madhya Pradesh including Rajgarh and Guna where two ex-royals former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh and Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia are contesting respectively, will go to vote on Tuesday. The voting for the third phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections will be held in Bhopal, Betul (reserved for ST), Sagar, Vidisha, Rajgarh, Guna, Gwalior, Morena and Bhind (reserved for SC) constituencies of the state.

The Rajgarh and Guna seats have become hot seats across the country as high-profile leaders Digvijaya and Scindia are contesting the elections from these constituencies on a Congress and a BJP ticket from their traditional seats, However, Vidisha is also seen as a high-profile constituency because former CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan is in election fray from there. Congress has fielded its former MP Pratapbhanu Sharma against Chouhan. Chouhan has been MP from this seat many times before becoming CM.

Scindia is contesting on a BJP ticket from Guna for the first time. In the previous general elections, he lost the election to BJP candidate K P Yadav. A few months later, Jyotiraditya left the grand old party and switched to BJP leading to topple the Kamal Nath-led Congress government in the state.

The electoral battle is seen as prestige for the Saffron Party in both seats. Union Minister Amit Shah and UP CM Yogi Adityanath have campaigned for Scindia in the Guna and for Rodmal Nagar, who has been renominated by the BJP from the Rajgarh seat. Nagar was elected two times from the Rajgarh seat in the 2014 and 2019 LS elections with a huge margin.

MP CM Mohan Yadav has also left no stone unturned to secure his party victory in both seats as he has made whirlwind tours there during campaign. He has canvassed many times for his party candidates in all 9 seats.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi have held public rallies for their parties for the second phase in the selected seats.

Congress has given a ticket to Yadvendra Singh Yadav against Scindia to corner him on the issue of the denial ticket of incumbent Guna MP K P Yadav. Yadav voters are a substantial population in the Guna seat, it is considered that their disgust was the major factor behind the Scindia debacle in the 2019 parliamentary polls.

Before, the 2019 elections, the Guna seat was known as a bastion of the Scindia family even if they contested from any party or an independent. Scindia himself, his father Madhavrao and his grandmother Vijaya Raje were elected many times from the Guna seat.

Many similarities can be seen between Scindia and Digvijaya as both are ex-royals, sitting members of the Upper House and were lost in the 2019 election from Guna and Bhopal constituencies, respectively. But they have campaigned for different ways in this election. Digvijaya has campaigned in Gandhian style. He walked every day around 25 kilometres and campaigned door-to-door to connect the people. He has won two elections from this seat before becoming CM. Scindia canvassed in the Guna in his glamorous manner.

Scindia has seen a great benefit from PM Modi's guarantees in this election, however, he may face a challenge from Yadav voters as BJP replaced K P Yadav with Scindia.

In the previous elections, the BJP won all these nine seats with a huge margin, but the battle has been made tough by the Congress in Rajgarh, Bhind, Gwalior and Morena by raising local issues, bringing the elections on caste equations and choosing appropriate candidates.

The BJP has fought the election on PM Modi's face and his guarantees including Hindutva, nationalism, development and national security issues. In the remaining five seats, BJP may register a grand victory.