Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): High profile Chhindwara constituency goes to polls in the first phase of voting for 2024 Lok Sabha Elections in Madhya Pradesh on April 19. One of the key constituencies of phase-1, Chhindwara will witness a contest between Nakul Nath, son of former Chief Minister of the state Kamal Nath and Vivek Bunty Sahu of BJP.
Voting will start from 7 am in the morning and will continue till 6 pm on six seats in the state including Sidhi, Shahdol, Jabalpur, Mandla, Balaghat and Chhindwara.
Congress had held the seat for more than 70 years now barring a short period of time between 1997-1998. For the last 44 years, Kamal Nath or a member of his family has been in power in Chhindwara. But, this time there is a tough competition here as BJP is aiming to win all 29 Lok Sabha seats of the state.
A hard battle for Congress
According to local sources, the people here are not very fond of Nakul Nath as an MP. In such a situation, former CM Kamal Nath is facing the challenge of saving his 44-year-old political empire along with making his MP son Nakul Nath win. Since the announcement of election date, Kamal Nath has been actively engaged in campaining. On the hand, top BJP leaders have held several rallies in the tribal-dominated constituency to woo the voters.
2019 General Elections Results
Nakul Nath, representing the INC, emerged victorious from Chhindwara during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, by a small margin of 37k votes. Nath garnered 5.83 lakh votes, while his opponent, Nathansaha Kawreti of the BJP, received 5.49 lakh votes.
Chhindwara Lok Saba constituency 2019 results |
On the hand, in 2014, Kamal Nath was the winning candidate from the Chhindwara Lok Sabha constituency, securing 559755 votes while 443218 votes were cast in favour of Choudhary Chandrabhan Kuber Singh of the BJP.
Caste equation
Chhindwara parliamentary seat is dominated by tribal voters. More than 38 percent of the population here is tribals. Of the seven assembly seats here, three are reserved for Scheduled Tribes and one for Scheduled Castes. This is the reason why Congress and BJP tried hard to woo the tribals in election meetings and rallies. At the same time, the general category population is dominant in the urban areas of the district.
What do the opinion polls suggest?
The India TV-CNX opinion poll suggests that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is poised to secure victory in all 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh during the upcoming elections. The survey indicates that the Congress, which only clinched one seat in Chhindwara during the 2019 general elections in the state, may not be able to retain it this time around.
However, local reports suggest that Kamal Nath might have an edge in the polls.
Total Voters
16,32,190 voters, including 8,24,449 men, 8,07,726 women and 15 third gender. Chhindwara Lok Sabha constituency results will be declared on June 4.
