BJP Holds The Centre

Congress euphoria in the state proved short-lived. With the saffron party swamping the Lok Sabha stakes, the state government seems in peril

- Rahul Noronha

Most Congress leaders in Madhya Pradesh took the BJP’s 27 out of 29 score in 2014 as an aberration; 2019 shows it wasn’t. It also shows that even well-entren ched political dynasts can be felled—as Jyotiraditya Scindia has been in Guna losing to K.P. Yadav, once his Saansad Pratinidhi— when people vote in the name of one supreme leader at the Centre.

Since the 1990s, the MP electorate has swung wildly in its choice of party for the Lok Sabha and assembly elections, even when they have been held a few months apart. In that sense, the current verdict for the Congress is hardly a surprise, even though the party had broken the BJP’s 15-year rule in the state just five months back.

In 1998, the BJP had won 30 and

the Congress 10 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in united MP. Some months later, the Congress managed to win the assembly election. In 2008, Shivraj Singh Chouhan became CM for a second term, with the BJP winning 143 of the state’s 230 seats, and the Congress 71. In the 2009 general election a few months later, the Congress won 12 of the 29 Lok Sabha seats. With elections becoming more and more personality-driven, the voter makes the distinction between his choices for the Lok Sabha and assembly polls very clear.