MP civic polls: Cong makes inroads into BJP stronghold with Gwalior, Jabalpur mayor seats
India Today
Gwalior and Jabalpur, both strongholds of the BJP, are set to have a Congress mayor after a gap of over 50 years and 23 years respectively.
As counting of votes for the second phase of the local bodies polls in Madhya Pradesh took place on Wednesday, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) termed its performance as "historic", saying that it has won over 300 out of 347 urban civic bodies. But though the BJP claimed victory in the civic polls, the Congress party has managed to make major inroads into BJP strongholds in Madhya Pradesh.
To start with, the Congress has breached the BJP citadels of Gwalior, Morena, and Jabalpur when it comes to mayor elections. Gwalior elected a Congress mayor for the first time in over 50 years, while in Jabalpur, Congress party’s mayor got elected after 23 years. In Morena, the Lok Sabha constituency of Narendra Singh Tomar, Congress’s Shradha Solanki defeated BJP’s Meena Jatav by over 14 thousand votes.
Moreover, the losses hold significance as Gwalior is the stronghold of Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia. The defeat in the Scindia bastion of Gwalior-Chambal region is being seen as an outcome of the internal struggles of the saffron party. Jyotiraditya Scindia is understood to have asked for the Gwalior ticket for his aunt Maya Singh, which was rejected and instead given to a Narendra Singh Tomar loyalist. The Morena ticket too was given to candidate from the Narendra Singh Tomar faction.
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The Congress party is celebrating the outcome of the civic polls, particularly in the Gwalior-Chambal region as it was victory in this region in 2018 assembly elections that had propped up a congress government in Madhya Pradesh back then.
The government, however, did not last long and fell after Scindia, along with his supporters, who were elected MLAs from the same region, left the Congress and joined the BJP.
The victory for the Congress is double sweet, particularly for Digvijay Singh, who nurtures ambitions of hoisting his son into a leadership position in the state.
