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Opinion

CPB inclusions boosts Chouhan's prospects

By-elections were held in three Assembly constituencies. They were Vijayraghogarh and Bahoriband in Katni district and Agar in Agar-Malwa district.  Among the three, two were with the BJP and one with the Congress.

In the Assembly elections last year, Sanjay Pathak had won from the Vijayraghogarh seat as a Congress candidate but because of some serious differences with the Congress, he resigned not only from the party but also from the Assembly.

Pathak then joined the BJP, which decided to reward him by sponsoring him as the BJP candidate in the bye-polls. He won the elections and thus the electorate endorsed his defection. But the BJP suffered a setback when its candidate lost the election in Bahoriband.

This constituency was regarded as a BJP stronghold. The loss of this seat was regarded as a setback not only to the BJP but also the chief minister personally as he had addressed more than a dozen public meetings in the constituency.

While by-election results may appear to be a minor setback for the BJP, they proved to be great moral booster for the Congress. The Congress routed the BJP candidate in Bahoriband, which was regarded as a BJP stronghold.

Chouhan's prestige received another boost when he was included in the Parliamentary Board of the party. Incidentally, he is the only BJP chief minister to get a berth in the highest decision making body of the BJP. In the earlier body, Narendra Modi was the only chief minister to get a place.  
Besides Chouhan, two other BJP leaders who have been nominated to the Board are also elected to the Lok Sabha from Madhya Pradesh. They are Sushma Swaraj and Thawar Chand Gehlot. No other state has the distinction of having three leaders of the state as members of the Parliamentary Board.
With so many feathers in his cap, the chief minister is preparing to host a very large congregation of investors at Indore in October. This congregation is likely to be attended by more than one thousand potential investors both from India and abroad.

However, doubts are being expressed by the industrial circles about the success of the investors’ summit. The announcement about the dates of summit has coincided with an emerging power crisis in the State. Power supply was satisfactory before the Vidhan Sabha elections held last year.

Uninterrupted supply continued till the Lok Sabha elections. But suddenly, unscheduled power cuts became the order of the day. Now reports of frequent interruptions in power supply are pouring in from different parts of the state. Reports of angry demonstrations against unscheduled and unannounced cuts are coming from various towns and villages of the state. The shortage in power supply is being ascribed to the fall in the generation of hydro power due to lack of adequate rains.

IPA


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