Nine candidates in fray for bypoll in Madhya Pradesh’s Amarwara assembly seat

Bhopal: Nine candidates will fight for the Amarwara (ST) assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh, where a bypoll was necessitated after the Congress leader representing the constituency crossed over to the BJP and resigned, an official said on Thursday.

After the last date for withdrawal of nominations on Wednesday, nine candidates remained in the fray for the bye election, which will be held on July 10, the state’s Chief Electoral Officer Anupam Rajan said.

Seven candidates withdrew from the contest on Wednesday, he said.

The main contest here is between the former Congress MLA-turned-BJP leader Kamlesh Shah and the grand old party’s Dheeran Shah Invati, sources said.

In a major setback to the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Shah, a three-time party MLA from Amarwara seat under Chhindwara Lok Sabha constituency and a confidante of former chief minister Kamal Nath, had resigned on March 29 and joined the ruling BJP soon after.

Shah later resigned from the membership of the state assembly, paving the way for the bypoll on Amarwara seat.

In the November 2023 assembly elections, Shah, on a Congress ticket, had BJP’s Monika Manmohan Shah Batti by a margin of 25,086 votes from Amarwara.

After 1972, the BJP won from the Amarwara seat twice in 1990 and 2008, while the Congress won nine times. Tribal outfit Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP) bagged this seat once in 2003.

The bypoll will be held on July 10 and votes will be counted on July 13, the official said.