Lok Sabha Elections 2024: A fierce battle of fresh faces on the cards in Bhopal

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh’s prestigious seat Bhopal will not witness a high-octane battle this time, with both the BJP and the Congress fielding new faces. Yet, the fight between former mayor Alok Sharma, BJP’s candidate and district Congress president Arun Srivastava promises to be a feisty battle.

In 2019, Bhopal witnessed a blockbuster battle when BJP’s Sadhvi Pragya Thakur went against Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh, which Thakur won by a margin of 3,64,822 votes.

This time, the BJP did not field Thakur, who had ruffled some feathers with her comments in December 2022  by asking Hindus to keep themselves armed to protect themselves.

Sharma says he is happy that both parties have fielded Bhopal residents and not outsiders. “Bhopal ka beta hoon (I’m a son of Bhopal); people have seen what I have done and what I am capable of. If I am voted to power, then we will have a triple-engine government here, with the BJP ruling the Centre as well as the state,” he said.

He added that apart from the BJP’s achievements and promises, on his part, he is studying the major capitals of the country as well as across the globe to develop Bhopal. “We are already a smart city, we are gifted with heritage and digitally we are making a mark. We will be a metro city soon, and we will be a global city shortly.”

While Bhopal is a key BJP citadel – a seat which the party has not lost since 1989 – what might make matters somewhat easier for the Congress is that Sharma lost the assembly elections last year to Congress’s Atiq Aqueel. 

Senior political analyst, author and Bhopal resident Rasheed Kidwai said this is where the BJP’s election machinery comes in. “In the state elections, Alok Sharma was fielded from a minority-dominated seat of Bhopal North; Sharma is now looking at a larger demographic profile of Bhopal and appealing that since he lost from a minority seat, the majority community should vote for him,” he said.

In Bhopal as well as several seats in Madhya Pradesh are expected to go the BJP way, yet the seeming absence of a contest is proving to spell some trouble for the BJP. It is to address these fears, says Kidwai, that Modi’s rally in Bhopal was held last on April 24 – two weeks ahead of the May 7 polls. 

Modi’s rally was also seen as an attempt to motivate the RSS cadre.

“Reports started coming in that they were unhappy with the induction of over 50,000 Congress workers. There was a certain amount of disquiet in the BJP-RSS circuit for drafting so many from the enemy camp, and taking up positions,” Kidwai said.