Madhya Pradesh: Local bodies' elections
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Local bodies
2023
June 17, 2023: The Times of India
BHOPAL: Six months ahead of assembly elections, the BJP and Congress came up neck and neck in 13 local body bypolls – the ruling saffron camp winning seven and opposition Congress bagging six.
Voting was on June 13 and the results were declared by the Election Commission on Friday. For BJP, the big win was a corporation ward in Chhindwara, the home turf of state Congress president Kamal Nath.
BJP’s Sandeep Singh Chouhan defeated Congress’ Rajendra Swami in Chhindwara’s ward 42 by a margin of 436 votes. State BJP chief VD Sharma said that the hard work of local party workers and the welfare schemes of the Narendra Modi-led Union government and the Shivraj Singh Chouhan administration led to the victory.
“I had said that Chhindwara is the bastion of beneficiaries of central and state government schemes. Despite Kamal Nath and his son MP Nakul Nath’s appeal, the BJP candidate won after securing 62% votes,” he said, seeing it as an indication of the November assembly elections. He recalled that Union home minister Amit Shah had launched the BJP’s assembly election campaign from Chhindwara.
Apart from Chhindwara, BJP won the bypolls in Bilhara and Badari in Sagar district, Jaura in Morena, Kotar in Satna, Budhar in Shahdol and Ratangarh in Neemuch. Congress candidates won corporator seats in Satna, Dongarparasia in Chhindwara, Sardarpur in Dhar, Mandsaur, Satwas in Dewas and Shahpur in Burhanpur district. The voter turnout was 74%.
Mayors
2022, July
Suchandana Gupta, July 21, 2022: The Times of India
Bhopal: Two days ago, Madhya Pradesh’s governing BJP received a massive jolt when it lost Gwalior Municipal Corporation, where it had been in power for 50 years. The saffron camp had hardly recovered from that defeat when it lost Morena, the only other municipal corporation in the GwaliorChambal region. Congress’s mayoral candidate for Morena Sharda Solanki defeated BJP’s Meena Jatav by 14,684 votes. Of the 47 wards of Morena Municipal Corporation, Congress won 19, BJP 15, BSP eight, AAP one, SP one and Independents bagged three.
State Congress media cell chief KK Mishra said, “After Jyotiraditya Scindia switched loyalties, Gwalior and Chambal have become BJP-mukt. Even after BJP misused government machinery, it couldn’t win. Kamal Nath’s poll strategy gave us a historic victory. ”
State BJP secretary Rajneesh Agarwal argued BJP may have lost the municipal corporations but has won a majority of the municipalities and town councils in the state.
YEAR-WISE DEVELOPMENTS
2017, civic polls
BHOPAL: BJP retained 25 seats in the urban and local body elections, whose results were announced on Wednesday. Congress won 15, increasing its tally but at the cost of Independents rather than the ruling party. Three went into Independents.
The scoreline is crucial, coming in the backdrop of the farmer agitation and the death of five farmers in police firing less than eight weeks ahead of the election. While BJP came out unscathed, Congress seemed enthused by its gain in seats, though it lost Dabra, in Jyotiraditya Scindia's pocket borough, by a whopping 10,000 votes. In an interview to TOI, when counting was on, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had confidently said BJP will win 26. "I am yet to take an update but we will retain 26 seats," he said, ruling out the possibility of the farmers' agitation having any impact on the polls. "There is no impact of farmers' agitation since it was led by a handful of Congress workers who tried to spread unrest," said Chouhan.
In the 2012 election, where 37 seats were for the taking, BJP had won 25 with six each going to Congress and Independent candidates, said the state election commission.
Voting was high in a number of seats due to Right to Recall in Gadarwara and Shamshabad by-elections — it's a process by which a majority of corporators can approach a collector with no-confidence motion in the existing president of a council. Initially, Right to Recall was proposed in four districts — Kurawar, Shamshabad, Sabalgarh and Gadarwara and byelections. But election at Kurawar and Sabalgarh was stayed and turned down by the court while voting was held at the other two places. Congress retained all four seats.
BJP state chief Nandkumar Singh Chouhan said the victory is a "gift to party president Amit Shah" who is scheduled to arrive in Bhopal on August 18 on a three-day visit. "The Congress' claims that farmers' agitation and problems of tribals will help it make a clean sweep proved wrong. The wave of Shivraj Singh Chouhan restricted Congress stalwarts to their own areas," Singh told reporters. "BJP retained 25 seats despite the fact that Election Commission deferred voting in Barwani and Dhar due to difficulties in areas coming under submergence of Sardar Sarovar Dam and agitation by some groups. BJP grabbed more seats than it did in the previous election."
Excited by the results, Congress called it a "sign of change in the state". Congress chief spokesperson K K Mishra pointed out that not only had the Congress tally increased, in at least four seats the margin between BJP and Congress was only a few hundred votes. "The administration worked in favour of BJP, due to which Congress candidates lost," he said. Of the five headquarters, BJP won Shahdol and Dindori seats while Jhabua, Alirajpur and Mandla went with Congress.
2018
Congress somewhat ahead of BJP
Jolt to BJP ahead of MP elections, January 21, 2018: The Times of India
BJP’s victory march in Madhya Pradesh received a jolt for the first time in 14 years on Saturday with the ruling party losing to Congress four of the six municipalities that it held. Assembly elections are scheduled in the state later this year and a jubilant Congress proclaimed that the “so-called magic of CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan was wearing off”.
Out of 20 civic bodies that went to the polls on Wednesday, Congress and BJP won nine each. Another went to a Congress-backed independent while counting for the Semaria town council in Rewa was stalled after a court order. In 2013, BJP had bagged 13 while Congress won only seven. BJP, which had won all the six municipalities then, could win only Sendhwa and Pithampur this time. Congress has wrested Dhar, Barwani, Raghogarh and Manawar municipalities from the ruling party.
Cong wins Manawar after gap of 45 years
Significantly, Congress won back Manawar after a gap of 45 years. Congress candidate Sangeeta Shivram Patidar beat BJP’s Manu Shivram Patidar by a margin of 314 votes in this municipality.
Congress has gained ground in urban areas, including big towns like Dhar and Barwani, which were considered BJP bastions.
“BJP was calling these civic polls the quarterfinal before the November assembly elections. Results indicate that Congress will form government in the next assembly elections,” said state Congress president Arun Yadav.
Thanking people, he dedicated the victory to party workers and said: “The socalled magic of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been demolished. Congress is ready to take the challenge of Mungaoli, Kolaras bypolls and the assembly elections in November.”
Civic bypolls: Cong wins 9, BJP 4
Cong stuns BJP in MP civic bypolls, wins 9/14, August 8, 2018: The Times of India
In a major jolt to the ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh ahead of assembly elections, Congress on Tuesday won nine of the 14 seats in civic bypolls held in 14 districts. BJP won only four, while an Independent bagged one.
The byelections were held on August 3 for post of corporators. Counting for janpad polls was also held on Tuesday, which yielded the biggest surprise — BJP tasting defeat in its stronghold of Indore.
A Congress-supported candidate won in Ward 3 of Indore zila panchayat. Several BJP heavyweights, including Kailash Vijayavargiya, had campaigned for Ghanshyam Patidar, but he lost to Dinesh Thakur, who was backed by Rau’s Congress MLA Jitu Patwari.
In civic bypolls, Congress wrested two seats from BJP in Chhindwara and won one each in Bhopal, Burhanpur, Neemuch, Gwalior, Singrauli, Satna and Guna. Officials couldn’t immediately say how many of these seven were held by BJP. The saffron party’s consolation, perhaps, was that it retained a seat in Mandsaur, the hotbed of last year’s farmer agitation, and one each in Damoh, Datia and Anuppur. The Independent won in Bhind.
2022
July
July 18, 2022: The Times of India
Bhopal: AAP registered its first win in MP electoral politics on Sunday with Rani Agarwal taking the mayor’s post in Singrauli Municipal Corporation, defeating her BJP rival by more than 9,000 votes. AAP won 17 corporator posts and finished runner-up on 33 other seats in 10 districts —an indication of its widening reach. Singrauli is one of the richest municipal bodies in Madhya Pradesh. TNN
