Congress names candidate for Assembly byelection on Chhindwara’s high-stakes Amarwara seat

The Congress on June 19 nominated Dheeran Shah Invati as its candidate for the July 10 byelection on the Amarwara (ST) Assembly constituency in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhindwara. 

The byelection was necessitated after Kamlesh Shah, a former loyalist of ex-CM Kamal Nath and a two-term Amarwara MLA, had quit the Congress and gave up his seat as an MLA to join the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha election. Mr. Shah has already been fielded by the BJP for the byelection and filed his nomination on Tuesday. 

Mr. Shah’s switch had come as a blow to the Congress which also saw many other prominent leaders and ground-level workers shifting loyalties ahead of the Lok Sabha election in Chhindwara as well as in other parts of the State. In Chhindwara, the prominent names included some close confidants of Mr. Kamal Nath such as former State Minister Deepak Saxena, city Mayor Vikram Ahake, and party spokesperson Syed Jafar.

In the recently held Lok Sabha election, the Congress’ incumbent MP and Mr. Kamal Nath’s son Nakul Nath lost his father’s bastion to BJP’s Vivek ‘Bunty’ Sahu by a margin of over 1.13 lakhs.

Chhindwara was the only Lok Sabha seat out of the State’s 29 that the Congress had won in 2019 Lok Sabha election whereas in 2024 the BJP managed a clean sweep in the State. 

The Amarwara seat is now a matter of prestige for both the parties. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and State BJP chief V.D. Sharma’s public rally ahead of Mr. Shah’s nomination showed the ruling party’s intention of continuing its winning momentum and further dent Mr. Kamal Nath’s influence in the region. 

Meanwhile, State Congress chief Jitu Patwari and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Umang Singhar will be among senior party leaders who will accompany Mr. Invati during filing nomination papers. 

Sources in the State Congress, however, confirmed that the Nath father-son duo will not be present during nomination filing but said that the party candidate was senior Nath’s choice. 

“Invite is a Kamal Nath man. Other than this, he is a low profile person. In Chhindwara, Congress means Kamal Nath and it is not possible to change just because we lost an election there. Congress doesn’t have a leader in Chhindwara who can take his place,” said a senior party insider. 

The leader also said that Mr. Kamal Nath’s absence from Chhindwara since the electoral result “was good”. “He has always been quite approachable for the locals but the people will now realise that he is upset. This might help us in a psychological way,” the insider added. 

Even though various reports suggested that the Congress was hoping for an alliance with the Gondwana Ganatantra Party for Amarwara byelection, the regional party also fielded Dev Raven Bhalavi as its candidate on Monday. Mr. Bhalavi had contested the bygone Lok Sabha poll from Chhindwara and remained on number 3. 

On June 10, the Election Commission of India announced byelections on 13 seats across the country, including Amarwara, where the polling will take place on July 10 while the votes will be counted on July 13.