The BJP is troubled more by its own men than the Congress in the assembly elections 2018. Former ministers, ex-MPs and MLAs have raised a flag of revolt. Seriousness of the issue in state party leaders can be gauged from the fact that the saffron party is facing dissent in more than 30 out of 230 assembly seats. At all these places, party leaders have revolted against denial of ticket.The rebellion is giving sleepless night to state party leadership and making the rebels withdraw their nomination is the biggest challenge before the BJP.
Former minister Raghavji on Friday jumped into electoral fray as an independent from Shamshabad. Former MP Ram Krishna Kusumaria has filed nomination as independent from Patharia and Damoh, while another ex-MP Jitendra Singh Bundela has filed papers from Maharajpur.
Among MLAs, KK Shrivastava has filed nomination from Teekamgarh, Champalal Devda from Bagli, Rajkumar Mev from Maheshwar, Vel Singh Bhuria from Sardarpur, Rekha Yadav from Malhara and Sangeeta Charel from Sailana. Contd. on P10
After being denied party ticket, sitting MLA from Bhind Narendra Kushwaha has jumped the Samajwadi Party bandwagon and entered the fray as its candidate.
Former MLA from Karera, Ramesh Khatik, is in election fray as SAPAKS candidate. Former MLA Jitendra Daga and former MLA from Berasia Brahmanand Ratnakar too have rebelled and filed nominations. Vipin Bhargava and Jodha Singh Atwal from Bhojpur, Dhiraj Pateria from Jabalpur North, Ramoram Gupta from Satna, Mukesh Jain from Sagar and Vishwamitra Pathak from Sihawal too have entered electoral fray as independents. Usha Saxena, wife of former MLA Ramesh Saxena too has filed nomination papers from Sehore.
The BJP has denied ticket to its 50 MLAs, including its five ministers. Most of these MLAs are said to be annoyed. Sartaj Singh, Neelam Mishra and Sanjay Verma have already joined the Congress. Some of the leaders, disappointed over not getting ticket, may join other parties in coming days. BJP national organisational general secretary Ramlal and state organisation general secretary Suhas Bhagat are trying to pacify the angry leaders. Sources claimed that the BJP gave tickets to several MLAs, overriding adverse report and public outcry, merely to douse flames of rebellion. However, it has failed to have any impact.
