Indore: Why BJP candidate Shankar Lalwani won and Congress candidate Pankaj Sanghvi lost the election? Not a difficult answer: The Modi wave did the trick in Indore like elsewhere. But was it the only reason? The answer is no. For those who were closely following the election in Indore, it was a contest between Lalwani and Pankaj initially. In fact, many thought that voters of Indore were unhappy with BJP as it replaced eight-time MP Sumitra Mahajan with “not-so-popular” Lalwani and they may elect the Congress candidate. There were also reports that Mahajan and BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya camps were dead against giving ticket to Lalwani, who is close to former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Victory of Congress on four out of eight assembly seats under Indore Lok Sabha constituency six months ago had also leveled the field for a tough contest between Lalwani and Pankaj.
When Lalwani was declared as successor of Mahajan, Congress was on cloud nine and suddenly saw an opportunity to wrest the seat from the saffron party after a three decades. But then things changed. It all started the day when Mahajan and Vijayvargiya following directives of party high command reached collectorate together for nomination of Lalwani. This sent a message to voters that both Tai (Mahajan) and Bhai (Vijayvargiya) camps were rallying behind Lalwani. After that, the BJP got united and even those seasoned leaders, who had maintained distance from elections, stood by Lalwani whereas Congress lost the track and its campaign started fizzling out. All four ministers from Indore, including Jitu Patwari, Sajjan Singh Verma, Tulsi Silawat, and Bala Bachhan also did not come forward to support Sanghvi in the manner they should have. By May 11, the victory of Lalwani was palpable.
On May 12 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi came for a rally in Indore and people gathered in a large number to support him, it was just left to see by how many votes Lalwani wins. The following day, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi had also come to seek votes for Sanghvi and pulled a huge crowd but that did not convert into vote. The picture of BJP winning elections became clear and bigger on May 19 when people in a large number came out of their houses to cast vote. Nearly 70 per cent polling was reported and poll pundits predicted that the increase of 8 per cent vote percentage in comparison to last elections was going in favour of BJP. In a city where Tai and Bhai call the shots has emerged Lalwani, the only Sindhi community member to have contested and won election in 2019.
