Narmadapuram (Madhya Pradesh): The Hoshangabad Lok Sabha constituency is heading for a keen contest between BJP candidate Darshan Singh Choudhary and three-time legislator of the Congress Sanjay Sharma – though there are 12 candidates from other parties in the fray.
A leader of the farming community, Choudhary has taken part in various agitations since he was a student.
Afterwards, he raised the issues of farmers and plunged into politics. Choudhary hogged the limelight by raising problems of the farmers through protests.
Choudhary is fighting his first electoral battle from a constituency where the ruling BJP has won all the eight assembly seats.
BJP’s performance in the 2023 assembly election and in the 2019 Lok Sabha election indicates that the Hoshangabad parliamentary seat is a citadel of the ruling party.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Rao Uday Pratap Singh humbled his rival by a record margin of over 5.50 lakh votes.
This is the reason why it is said that anyone contesting the election from the constituency on BJP ticket is sure to win.
But then it is not without reason that an MP of Rajya Sabha, the chief minister, a former chief minister and a few ministers of the present government are canvassing for Choudhary.
Apart from that, Prime Minister Narendra Modi may address a public meeting at Pipariya on April 14.
On the surface, though the BJP and the Congress are locked in the battle, behind the scenes, the fire of internal squabbling is burning the party.
Sharma is slowly campaigning, but whether it brings any results will be known only on June 4.
As far as the Congress leaders are concerned, MPCC president Jitu Patwari held a public rally when Sharma filed his nomination papers. Apart from Patwari, a few Congress leaders were also present when Sharma filed papers.
Winner of many battles
Congress candidate Sanjay Sharma has been active in politics since 1985-86 when he was a student.
In 1986, he joined the BJP, and became a legislator from Bohani constituency, now Tendukheda, in 2003.
From 2003 to 2009, he was a specially invited member of the BJP’s state executive committee.
In 2013, he again won election from Tendukheda on the BP ticket. He defected to the Congress in 2018 and won the assembly election from Tendukheda.
As a legislator he has donated land for construction of a stadium, a school building and developed religious places. The people still remember the welfare work he did during the Covid-19 pandemic. So, he may get people’s support.
Nevertheless, voters in the constituency are fed up with the party-hoppers, because they have to press different buttons of EVMs for one candidate contesting from different parties in different elections.
