Voting for 1 Lok Sabha, 3 Assembly seats in MP underway

Bhopal: Voting for the bypolls to the three Assembly constituencies and one Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh was underway on Saturday.

Voting began at 7 a.m. and will end at 6 p.m.

Over 26 lakh voters will decide the fate of the 48 candidates in the fray, out of which 32 are contesting for the Raigon, Jobat, Prithvipur Assembly seats, and the 16 candidates are fighting for the Khandwa Lok Sabha seat.

While the elections will be a litmus test for the state rulling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and it's Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, the opposition Congress will try to retain the Jobat and Prithvipur seats which it won in the 2018 Assembly polls.

The by-elections in Jabat (Alirajpur district) and Prithvipur (Niwari district) fell vacant after the death of Congress MLAs - Kalawati Bhuriya and Brijendra Singh Rathore, respectively.

While the by-elections in Raigon (Satna district) was necessitated after death of BJP MLA Jugal Kishor Nagari due to age related complications, the Khandwa seat was vacant due to the death of BJP MP Nandkumar Chauhan due to Covid related complications.

Interestingly, the three Assembly constituencies are located in different regions in the state and therefore both the BJP and Congress had to use use different tactics during campaigning.

Prithvipur falls under Bundelkhand region, Raigon is in Baghelkhand and Jobat seat is in the Madhya Pradesh-Gujarat border area.

Meanwhile, Khandwa is located in the Nimad region with diverse cast dynamics.

For Jobat and Prithvipur Assembly seats, the ruling BJP has filed two defectors. Sulochna Rawat, a two-time MLA had defected to BJP after she was denied ticket by the Congress. Now, she is contesting for the BJP against the Congress' Mahesh Patel.

Similarly, BJP candidate from Prithvipur Shishupal Yadav had joined the the party after quitting the Samajwadi Party days before his candidature was announced. Yadav is pitted against former Congress MLA Brijendra Singh Rathore's son Rajendra Singh Rathore.

While, BJP candidate for Raigon, Pratima Bagari is a relative of former BJP MLA Jugal Kishor Bagari, the Congress has chosen Kalpna Verma for this seat.