Heat rises, political divide sharpens in MP's 9 seats

AFTER a lower polling compared to the 2019 polls in the first two phases, the ongoing Lok Sabha elections move into the third phase into Madhya Pradesh's GwaliorChambal region-infamous for lower voter turnout, extremely high summer temperatures and politics divided sharply on caste lines.

- ANURAAG SINGH

Four of the nine seats which will vote on May 7 are GwaliorChambal region's seats, including Guna, Bhind-SC, Morena and Gwalior, which saw a close contest between BJP and Congress in the 2023 assembly polls. Four seats, Vidisha, Rajgarh, state capital Bhopal and BetulST form part of the central MP, which emerged as the best region for the BJP in state polls, while one seat Sagar forms part of the Bundelkhand region. All nine seats were won by BJP.

The May 7 contest will see three political bigwigs, including two former CMs Digvijaya Singh and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, returning to their home parliamentary seats after 33 and 20 years respectively, while union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia who won the Guna seat four times between 2002 and 2014, before losing it in 2019 to a BJP first-timer, is contesting to wrest his seat.

In Rajgarh, 1984 and 1991 winner and 1989 loser Digvijaya Singh is faced with the uphill task of retaining the central MP seat against second-time sitting MP Rodmal Nagar, who won the seat defeating Singh's loyalist Mona Sustani (now in BJP) by 4.31 lakh votes in 2019. Singh is particularly banking on his old links across the constituency spread in three districts as well as the high antiincumbency against the sitting BJP MP.