Lahar: Dr Govind Singh And The 23-Year Constant Congress Narrative
Lahar of Madhya Pradesh is an unbroken streak of INC’s Dr Govind Singh, where he is now contesting with BJP’s Ambrish Sharma. Having over 2.5 lakh voters in total, the constituency is a strong-hold of Congress for the last 23-years, which usually secures majority of its tribal votes.
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.
Lahar is one of the 230 legislative assembly constituencies of the central Indian state, and it came into existence in 1951. It is one of the 5 assembly constituencies located in the Bhind district and is also a part of the Bhind Lok Sabha constituency.
Lahar, as said by India Today has 251,000 voters in total. Of these, 137,000 are male voters and 114,000 are female voters. The majority are reserved groups including almost 53,000 from Scheduled Castes and 1,000 from Scheduled Tribes. At least 95,000 belongs to Other Backward Classes (OBC) and 8,000 were from Minority communities. 94,000 of the voter population were from General category.
The Assembly constituency is a stronghold of the Congress party, and Dr. Govind Singh had been the preferred choice of the people for the past seven elections. Mr Singh, who is currently the Leader of the Opposition in the assembly, first contested elections from the Lahar constituency in 1990 on a Janata Dal party ticket, which he won. He continued the victory saga since then from the Congress label and became part of numerous developmental projects in the constituency.
He has piloted the construction of Indira Gandhi Stadium, a new building for ITI College, a complex, a civil hospital, and various roads and bridges. In addition, he has also obtained approval and completed the construction of nine new sub-health centres and an indoor stadium. The economy of the Lahar Assembly constituency is mainly based on agriculture.
In 1951, it was INC’s Ram Chaudhary secured the seat and the party retained the seat in the next 1962 elections with Prabhudayal. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh took over the constituency in 1967 and Sarayu Prasad Tripathi went hold of the office. For the next election, the constituency chose Janata Party’s Rama Shankar Singh and in 1980 the victory was made by Rama Shankar Chowdhary. BJP’s Mathura Prasad Mahant won the 1985 elections.
From 1990, for the past 23 years, Lahar was the strong-held fortress of Dr Govind Singh. He is the incumbent leader of opposition after Kamal Nath resigned from the position on 28 April 2022. Mr Singh won the election in seven consecutive terms – 1990, 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013, and 2018.
