Five Nominations Rejected for Crucial Budhni, Vijaypur Bypolls

Bhopal

Nominations of five candidates have been deemed invalid by election officials on Monday in the two constituencies of Madhya Pradesh that go to polls on November 13.

Concluding the scrutiny of nomination papers filed by the candidates, election officials confirmed that the rejection of the five candidates leaves 12 candidates for the tribal-dominated Vijaypur seat, while 23 candidates are currently in the contest for the high-profile Budhni constituency. The last date for the withdrawal of nominations is October 30.

Forty candidates had filed nomination papers for contesting the polls in the two seats. After scrutiny, 35 remain in the fray. The final number of candidates in the fray will be clear after October 30, which is the last date for the withdrawal of candidature.

Budhni, the home turf of former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, fell vacant after the incumbent Union Minister for Farmer Welfare clocked a record victory from Vidisha in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, while the bypoll in Vijaypur was necessitated after sitting Congress MLA Ramnivas Rawat defected to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Elevated to the position of State Forest Minister soon after his change of heart, Rawat is now contesting Vijaypur on a BJP ticket. In Budhni, the ruling party has fielded Ramakant Bhargava despite opposition from the local unit of the party, which had sought the ticket for Chouhan’s son, Kartikeya.

The Congress nominee for Budhni is former MLA Rajkumar Patel, while Mukesh Malhotra represents the grand old party in Vijaypur. Late entrants, the Samajwadi Party, are also contesting Budhni with Arjun Arya as their official nominee.

Arya, a former SP hand, had defected to the Congress but returned to the red caps after the grand old outfit refused to accommodate his demand for the Budhni ticket.

Many believe that Arya’s presence in the contest may upset Patel’s chances of a respectable defeat despite substantial anger among BJP ranks following the party’s refusal to nominate Kartikeya.

Pollsters say that the ruling party is always the firm favourite in any bypoll, and Budhni and Vijaypur are unlikely to prove exceptions to this rule unless major divisions in the BJP ranks lead the people to pull the plug on Bhargava or Rawat.

Vijaypur has a substantial anti-BJP vote; Congress won the 2023 assembly election for the seat with (now BJP candidate) Rawat despite the presence of Malhotra as an independent in the electoral fray. Back then, the two anti-ruling party candidates—Rawat and Malhotra—had polled 1.1 lakh votes, which was nearly twice of what Babulal Mevra had managed to clock for the BJP, and nearly 30,000 more than the cumulative votes garnered by BJP and BSP.

Little wonder the Congress believes it stands a strong chance in the constituency, where state party unit chief Jitu Patwari is vowing to avenge the ignominy Rawat meted out to him by defecting to the BJP close on the heels of his appointment at the helm of the state unit.

Results for the by-election are scheduled for November 23.