Mahakaushal region to see BJP, Congress direct fight

Jabalpur: Only an hour is left for the end of campaigning for the first phase of Lok Sabha elections. But at the Narsingh Mandir here, people are just getting ready. People of different hues – caste, creed and political tilt – are assembling at various parts of the city. The day marks Ram Navami, and processions staring at various parts of the city will converge at one point.

The religious festival in the cultural capital of Madhya Pradesh coincides with the festival of democracy where politicians of the two rival parties — Congress and BJP — are taking on each other. The candidates of both parties — Congress’s Dinesh Yadav and BJP’s Ashish Dubey — are joining the religious procession. So is chief minister Mohan Yadav, who has flown in from Bhopal.

Jabalpur, which lies at the center of the Mahakaushal region, has seen some of the BJP’s most prominent faces come and lend a hand to Dubey.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a rally, as did Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Chief Minister Yadav, too, has come over four times to campaign.

Dubey claims that BJP’s ideal of ‘antyodaya’ has worked. “PM Modi remains the most popular, and we have worked for every section of the society,” he says.

In the Congress camp, no star campaigners have come down to campaign for Dinesh Yadav. “I wish either Rahul or Priyanka Gandhi had come to fight,” rues a Congress worker.

While the saffron camp hopes that the consecration of Ram temple in Ayodhya could tilt the game in its favour, Yadav remains unfazed.

“Every party tries to take credit for such developments, but people know that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru installed the idols and Rajiv Gandhi opened the locks (at the then disputed site). The Congress has never seen religion through the lens of politics. Today, the situation is such that religion is being played by the BJP,” he says.

“One can safely say that the CM has come here so many times because he will lose face if the BJP loses,” Yadav asserts, pointing at the sizeable Yadav votes in the seat.

While Jabalpur looks like an easy catch for the BJP, the scenario is slightly different in the remaining five seats in the region — Sidhi, Shahdol, Mandla, Balaghat and Chhindwara. In the 2023 Assembly polls, the BJP won 21 of the region’s 38 seats — breaching into what has been regarded as a Congress fortress.

This time, in Mandla, where the BJP has fielded Union minister Faggan Singh Kulaste against sitting MLA Omkar Singh Madkam, an upset could be in the offing.

It is in nearby Chhindwara where a prestige battle is being played out — Congress veteran Kamal Nath’s son Nakul Nath is up against the BJP machinery. It is the lone seat which the BJP lost in the state in 2019. Several BJP bigwigs have campaigned for BJP candidate Vivek Bunty Sahu. However, the Congress is confident of a victory here as the party had won all the seven Assembly seats in Chhindwara in the 2023 Assembly polls.