The Congress’s party nominee for the Indore seat joined the BJP after withdrawing his candidature for the general elections, dealing a major psychological blow to Congress leaders and cadre in the Hindi belt state. Indore will go to poll on 13 May which will be the fourth phase. The last date of filing for nomination for Indore was 25 April, while Monday was the last date to withdraw candidature.
Now the Congress will have no candidate in Indore as the nomination form of their dummy candidate too has been rejected on technical grounds.
The 46 years old Akshay Kanti Bam, who runs a law college in Indore, was accompanied by senior Indore based BJP leaders including Kailash Vijayvargiya and Ramesh Maindola when he went to the Collector office to withdraw his candidature. Later, Vijayvargiya shared a group picture of them to confirm that Bam had changed his allegiance at the last moment.
Indore based Congress leaders told the Daily Guardian that the Bam, who had been a part of the Congress for the last ten years and had lobbied for a ticket from the party for the last year’s assembly election too, was seen as someone who was close for Congress stalwart and former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh who had pushed for him given his image of an educationist who also had the resources to give a tough fight to the BJP in Indore, which for years has been a BJP bastion.
Bam had disclosed assets worth Rs 78 crore including a Rolex watch worth Rs 14 lakh. He is also the owner of more than 25 acres of land spread across various parts of the state.
They claimed that Bam was undergoing trial in a case that was filed against him in 2007 at Khajrana police station regarding a land dispute that had led to physical fight between him and the opposite party. According to them, last week an attempt to murder charges under section 307 of the Indian Penal Code were added in the case against Bam. Speculations were also floating in Indore that a female staff member of the college owned by Bam was going to file a case against him in the coming days.
The mobile number of Bam was switched off.
Of the 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh, now the INDIA bloc will be limited to contest on 27 seats as on Khajuraho seat, which went to polls on 26 April, the nomination papers of the alliance partner and Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Meera Yadav was rejected. The bloc had then decided to give support to the All-India Forward Bloc (AIFB) candidate, RB Prajapati, to give a token fight on the seat.
Earlier, in Surat Gujarat too, the BJP won the election without any contest, as the documents filed by Congress’s nominee were found to have discrepancies.
While the BJP had guaranteed a win for its candidate, Shakar Lalwani on the Indore seat, but the speculations that questionable methods were used to make the contest one sided by ensuring that the Congress candidates withdraw his nomination, has become a subject of discussion among the electorates in the city.
Journalists, professors and students, whom the Daily Guardian spoke to, said that such political manoeuvring will diminish the image of BJP among the voters and negatively impact the enthusiasm for the general elections.