“I did not let you down. What sin did I commit? What was my mistake? What cruelty or injustice did I do in these 45 years?” former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath said as he returned to campaigning for the first time since the Lok Sabha election, for an Assembly byelection in his now lost bastion of Chhindwara.
The bypoll to the Amarwara (Scheduled Tribe) Assembly constituency of the Chhindwara Lok Sabha segment is scheduled for July 10. The high-pitched campaigning for the bypoll in the past few weeks has been layered with emotions, allegations of betrayal, and loss of confidence. What’s at stake can be gauged from the intensity of campaigning, with top State leaders of both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress pulling out all stops for this one seat.
The bypoll in Amarwara was necessitated after Kamlesh Pratap Shah, a three-term Congress MLA and an erstwhile confidant of Mr. Kamal Nath, jumped over to the ruling BJP just weeks ahead of the Lok Sabha election. Mr. Shah is in the fray on a BJP ticket, while the Congress has nominated Dheeran Shah Invati, a new entrant in politics. Mr. Invati’s father heads the Anchal Kund Dham, a prominent Hindu religious centre among tribals of the region. The Congress candidate is also believed to be close to the Nath family, who are facing the bypoll after being bested in the recently concluded Lok Sabha election.
The BJP’s Vivek Bunty Sahu managed to breach Mr. Kamal Nath’s stronghold of Chhindwara by defeating the latter’s son, Nakul Nath, by over 1.13 lakh votes in the Lok Sabha election. Mr. Nakul Nath had won the Chhindwara Lok Sabha constituency in 2019, the only one out of the State’s 29 Lok Sabha seats won by the Congress in that election, but in 2024, the BJP managed a clean sweep in the State. Mr. Kamal Nath himself has represented Chhindwara nine times since 1980.
Also read | BJP fields Congress turncoat Kamlesh Shah for bypoll in Chhindwara’s Amarwara Assembly seat
While he remained missing in action since the announcement of the bypoll and the candidates for it, Mr. Kamal Nath returned to campaigning last week, with emotional appeals to seek votes for Mr. Invati.
“He (Mr. Invati) is not a political person. He is a social worker. He will sit in the Assembly with me,” Mr. Kamal Nath, now an MLA from the Chhindwara Assembly seat, said. He added that Mr. Invati had initially refused to enter politics and only agreed after he (Mr. Kamal Nath) had to spoken to Mr. Invati’s father.
Mr. Kamal Nath also termed the bypoll an “election of betrayal” and asked voters to exact “revenge”.
“This (the Lok Sabha) election is not a betrayal of Kamal Nath but of each person here. All members of our family were betrayed. This is the election of betrayal and you will have to take its revenge,” the Congress veteran said at a poll rally.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha election, Mr. Nakul Nath had also termed Mr. Shah a “traitor”.
Apart from the Nath father-son duo, several other senior Congress leaders, including State unit chief Jitu Patwari, have campaigned in Amarwara.
The BJP’s campaign, on the other hand, has been charged with confidence from its latest victory in the national election, and the party looks set to continue its winning momentum.
Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, who is again leading the party’s campaign, has accused the Nath family of “deceiving” the people of Chhindwara, saying that only “one family developed here”.
“The way we won in the Lok Sabha election in Chhindwara, we will also win in Amarwara,” Mr. Yadav said in Amarwara on the last day of campaigning.
Various tribal Ministers of the BJP’s State Government, and Mr. Sahu, have also campaigned in Amarwara to appeal to the dominant tribal community in the constituency.
The BJP also hopes to benefit from Mr. Shah’s hold in the area as he hails from Amarwara’s royal family, which wields strong political influence in the area.
The family credentials of the BJP and Congress nominees, local observers say, have also made the byelection a contest between faith and royalty.
The presence of the Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP) candidate Dev Raven Bhalavi has also made the contest interesting. While, the GGP has significant hold over tribal voters of Madhya Pradesh’s Mahakoshal region, Mr. Bhalavi’s own connect with the youth in Amarwara could worry the two main parties.
Mr. Bhalavi too contested the recent Lok Sabha election from Chhindwara, and was in the third position with 55,988 votes. He also fought the 2023 Assembly poll from Amarwara and secured over 18,000 votes.
In June, several reports had suggested that the Congress and the GGP were in talks for an alliance for the bypoll, but that did not materialise.
Even though the Amarwara Assembly seat has long been a Congress stronghold, the BJP managed to win it in 2008, and the GGP in 2003.
