Budhni By-Polls Heat Up For First Time In Two Decades As BJP Rebel Voices Dissent, Congress Rebel Runs As SP Candidate

Budhni assembly constituency of Madhya Pradesh, which was witnessing the most boring elections for two decades with the ensured victory of Shivraj Singh Chouhan, is set to have interesting by-polls with two rebels.

The seat was vacated by Chouhan as he won the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Vidisha and became the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare and Rural Development.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fielded the former member of parliament (MP) from Vidisha Ramakant Bhargava for the by-polls but has not been able to control dissent over his candidature.

Former member of the legislative assembly (MLA) from Budhni Rajendra Singh Rajput has spoken against Bhargava's candidature and his supporters gathered to demand a ticket for him.

Notably, both Rajput and Bhargava are close to Chouhan. Rajput won Budhni in the 2003 assembly elections but vacated the seat for Chouhan when he became the Chief Minister (CM) in 2005.

Chouhan too had contested the 2003 election, but from Raghogarh against former CM Digvijaya Singh and lost. Hence, he did not have an assembly seat in hand to become the CM in 2005.

At that time Rajput sacrificed his seat for Chouhan and since then, has accompanied him in Budhni. Similarly, Bhargava gave his Vidisha seat to Chouhan to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

Bhargava, too, is close to Chouhan. With Chouhan busy with Jharkhand assembly elections, as he is BJP in charge there, another former Vidisha MP Rampal Singh was sent to convince Rajput.

While Rajput has clarified that he would not contest the election as an Independent and consider the party's decision as final, he is pressurising the party to change the candidate with the help of his supporters.

Now, it is up to the BJP to decide whether it wants to continue with Bhargava as a candidate or declare Rajput as one, it should be mindful that it is going to be the last election for both leaders as they are above 70 years of age.

Meanwhile, the BJP appears to be set with the next generation of leaders in Budhni as Chouhan's son Kartikeya is managing the elections there and might be fielded as a candidate in future elections.

The Congress has fielded former MLA Raj Kumar Patel. He was a Minister in the Digvijaya Singh Cabinet. He hails from the Kirar community, the same community to which Chouhan belongs.

Kirar population in the constituency is over 50,000. If Patel manages to get his community votes, he can make these elections close, especially when the BJP is suffering from internal dissent.

However, the move by Congress ally Samajwadi Party (SP) can dent the former's chances. The Akhilesh Yadav-led SP has fielded Arjun Arya, a former Congress leader who joined SP a few days ago.

Arya is a farmer leader and has been state secretary in Congress. He was demanding a ticket from the Congress but when the party fielded Patel. he rebelled and joined the SP.

Notably, he was in SP in 2018, too. However, later joined Congress. This time, after assurance of a ticket from Yadav, he joined the SP again.

Given the high victory margin of the BJP in the past several elections in Budhni, the by-polls will most likely deliver a positive result for the BJP, especially when it is in power and by-polls are known to be favourable to the incumbent.

However, with two rebels, while Rajput has assured that he will not contest as an Independent even if not declared a candidate by the BJP, the contest in Budhni has got interesting.