Khandwa(Madhya Pradesh): With every passing day, the internal rift in BJP increasing in two assembly seats - Mandhata and Pandhana here in Khandwa. BJP fielded sitting MLA Narayan Patel in Mandhata and Chhaya More in Pandhana. Both the candidates earlier were in Congress, but shifted their loyalty to BJP.
After the announcement of ticket to Patel and More, there was resentment among party workers as many of them accused party of ignoring party leaders who work for party and spent their entire lives for it. They claimed that they wouldn’t work for those who put their interest above party and ditch their party (Congress).
As a result, the former municipal council president had decided to contest the elections as an independent candidate from Mandhata seat. Now Chegaonmakhan former janpad president Chintaram Jagtap has also decided to contest as an independent candidate from Pandhana seat.
They raised questions over the top leadership and made it clear that they won’t work for Congressmen. Notably, sitting MLA Narayan Patel fought the 2018 assembly elections on Congress ticket and defeated Narendra Singh Tomar of BJP by 1,200 votes.
Meanwhile, in 2020 he switched parties and joined BJP. In the 2020 by-election, he contested on a BJP ticket and defeated Uttampal Singh of Congress by a margin of about 22,000 votes.
On the other hand, Chhaya More, hailing from Khargone district, has been a district panchayat member three times from Congress in Bhikangaon area adjacent to Pandhana area.
This is the reason why she was a contender from Bhikangaon in 2013, but due to the caste equation, Jhuma Solanki got the ticket from Bhikangaon. More later focused on Pandhana seat of Khandwa district. Nandu Bare, who had contested the 2013 elections from Pandhana, passed away.
Since she was from Arun Yadav camp, Congress gave ticket to Chhaya More from Pandhana in 2018 and she was defeated by Ram Dangore. Meanwhile, this time BJP denied ticket to Dangore and kept faith in More and announced her candidature from Pandhana seat.
