BHOPAL: On Wednesday, as the State Election Commission finished the reservation process of the local bodies’ elections, aspirants started lobbying for the posts of mayor and Nagar Palika and Nagar Parishad presidents.
The BJP has made it clear that it will not give the ticket for the post of mayor to a sitting MLA.
From Bhopal and from the BJP, the names of MLA Krishana Gour and Rajjo Malviya have started doing the rounds in the BJP gallery.
From the Congress, the names of former mayor Vibha Patel and district Congress president, women’s wing, Santosh Kasana, are being mentioned.
In Indore, as the seat has become open, it has created tension in both the BJP and the Congress. Many leaders from both the parties have started approaching for the ticket. From the BJP, Govind Malu, Gopi Krishna Nema and a few more have started lobbying for the ticket, while the names of two Congress leaders, Sanjay Shukla and Vinay Bakliwal, are doing the rounds in Bhopal for the mayor’s ticket.
The date of the election is yet to be decided. Till then, more names seeking a ticket for the post of mayor will keep cropping up.
Out of 16 municipal corporations, the BJP has seats in 13. The Congress will not find it easy to capture the mayoral post in the state.
In the elections of 2015:
The BJP candidate for the post of mayor, Malini Gaur, romped home with a margin of 2.47 lakh votes. She polled 620,083 votes against 3,73,487 votes secured by the runner-up, Congress’s Archana Jaiswal.
In Bhopal, the BJP candidate, Alok Sharma, beat his nearest rival, Congress’s Kailash Mishra, by a margin of 86,000 votes. Sharma got 4.42 lakh votes and Mishra 3.56 lakh votes.
