BHOPAL: Exodus of senior leaders from the ruling BJP to the opposition Congress continues ahead of assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh.
In perhaps the first major jolt to the ruling party in the tribal-dominated Mahakoshal region, former BJP MP from Balaghat Lok Sabha seat Bodhsingh Bhagat joined the Congress in Bhopal on Wednesday.
Bhagat, who won the LS polls in 2014 from Balaghat and also the assembly polls from the Khairlanji seat of Balaghat district in the past, blamed the anti-people policies of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government as the growing dominance of seven-time sitting BJP MLA and MP minister Gourishankar Bisen in BJP’s politics of Balaghat, for joining the Congress.
Importantly, the long-standing feud between Bisen and Bhagat is well known in the Balaghat district. Bhagat who had won the 2014 LS polls from Balaghat seat, had contested the 2019 LS polls from the same seat as independent and finished fourth with 47,000-plus votes after being denied a ticket by the BJP. The seat was won for the BJP by ex-minister Dhal Singh Bisen.
As per political insiders in the Maoist-affected Balaghat district, it was current MP minister Gaurishankar Bisen, who was behind the denial of ticket to the sitting MP Bodhsingh Bhagat in 2019.
Till just a few weeks back, Bhagat was seen as a frontrunner for the BJP ticket from Katangi Vidhan Sabha seat of Balaghat district, but Bisen is believed to have lobbied against Bhagat’s prospects, due to which the ex-BJP MP joined the Congress on Tuesday.
Bhagat is now a frontrunner for the Congress ticket from the Katangi seat of Balaghat district. Both Bhagat and his bete noire, the MP minister Gaurishankar Bisen hail from the same OBC Pawar caste, which has 30-40% votes in four out of the six assembly segments of Balaghat district.
Bhagat is the second former BJP MP to have joined the Congress in the poll-bound state within five months. Earlier, in April, another former BJP MP Makhansingh Solanki (whose nephew Sumer Solanki is currently the BJP’s Rajya Sabha member) had joined the Congress. Solanki had won the Khargone-ST seat of southwestern MP in 2009.
But it wasn’t just the former BJP MP from Balaghat who joined the Congress in Bhopal on Wednesday, as many other BJP leaders, including two leaders from CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s assembly constituency Budhni (Sehore) also joined the prime opposition party.
The two leaders included Sumit Chaube (nephew of CM’s close aide Shiv Chaube) and Rajesh Patel.
