Indore-1: The BJP-Congress Swap Spectacle
Indore-1 of Madhya Pradesh went through a head-to-head clash between the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) this year. While Sanjay Shukla fought to retain the constituency, which is currently under the control of Congress, Kailash Vijayvargia was in-charge to reinstate the region under the grab of BJP.
Madhya Pradesh was one among the five Indian states which witnessed legislative assembly elections recently, along with Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Telangana, and Rajasthan. Being a large state in terms of geography and population, Madhya Pradesh has 53 districts in total along 10 divisions. The population of the state was over seven crores in terms of the 2011 census data.
According to the recent data provided by the Election Commission of India, the state had more than 5.5 crore voters who were eligible to exercise their franchise. It included 2.8 crore male and 2.7 crore female voters. The polling was held on November 17 and the results will be declared on December 3. The state, comparing to the previous elections had witnessed a rise in the polling percentage this year by 1.25 per cent. Previously it was 74.97 per cent and in recent election it rose to 76.22 per cent.
Indore-1 is one of the 230 legislative assembly constituencies of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is part of the Indore district and is one of the nine constituencies which comes under the Indore Lok Sabha constituency. The constituency witnessed constant replacement of BJP with INC or vice versa in the previous elections from 1957.
In 1957 and 1962, Indore-1 stood with INC’s Babulal Patodi. He resumed in office in the next assembly elections conducted in 1962. The year 1967 witnessed a change when Samyukta Socialist Party’s Arif Baig took over the seat. In 1972 INC regained the constituency with Mahesh Joshi but lost to Janata Party’s Om Prakash Rawal in 1977. Once again INC fought back and won the seat in 1980. This time, the Congress leader Chandra Shekhar Vyas went to the state assembly.
A by-election was held in the same year and the BJP made an appearance to the major competitive spectrum of Indore-1. BJP’s Satynarayan Sattan won the election and held the office until the next term. The following two years witnessed the revenge of Congress, both in 1985 and 1990 INC’s Lalit Jain took hold of the office but lost to BJP’s Lalchand Murlidhar Mittal in 1993.
In 1998 elections, INC’s Ramlal Yadav reclaimed the seat. From 2003 to 2013, ten years the constituency went with the saffron party and BJP obtained hattrick victory. It was Usha Thakur in 2003, and Sudarshan Gupta in 2008 and 2013. In the 2018 elections, INC fought back the seat after ten years gap and Sanjay Shukla assumed office.
The vote statistics of 2018 Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly elections of Indore-1 states that, INC’s Sanjay Shukla won the seat gaining 50.24 per cent of the vote while his major rival Sudarshan Gupta stood just back with a per cent of 46.66. The constituency witnessed a 64.60 per cent voter turnout in 2018.
