Congress leader blames caste divide for loss in Lok Sabha elections

Tipaniya was in Indore along with other leaders of the party to take part in a review meeting to discuss the reasons of the party’s dismal show in the polls.
For representational purposes. (File Photo | PTI)
For representational purposes. (File Photo | PTI)

BHOPAL: Ten days after the Congress suffered its worst defeat in Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, one of the losing candidates of the party claimed that upper caste leaders and workers of the party did not work for candidates for reserved seats.

Prahlad Tipaniya, a Padma Shri awardee and internationally known Kabir bhajan singer, who lost in the Dewas-Shajapur seat, reserved for SC candidates, said, “Once someone is nominated as a party candidate, he or she is a candidate for every Congress worker. But at the constituency level, the candidate was being seen not as a party candidate, but instead as a candidate of a particular lobby or group, faction or caste, due to which other groups within the party didn’t work for the candidate’s success.”

Tipaniya was in Indore along with other leaders of the party to take part in a review meeting to discuss the reasons of the party’s dismal show in the polls.Just five months after coming to power in MP after 15 years, the Congress lost on 28 of the 29 Lok Sabha seats, only managing to win CM Kamal Nath’s pocket borough Chhindwara, where his son Nakul Nath won by just 38,000 votes.

All eight seats of Malwa-Nimar (West MP) region, including Indore, Dhar, Dewas, Ujjain, Khargone, Khandwa, Mandsaur and Ratlam, were won by the BJP by massive margins.In Dewas-SC seat, Tipaniya lost by a margin of 3.72 lakh-plus votes against BJP candidate Mahendra Singh Solanki.In the 2018 Assembly elections, the Congress had won 38 of the 64 assembly seats in the Malwa-Nimar (western MP) region.

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