BHOPAL: After distributing mininature Shiva Linga in Sanwer Assembly seat of Indore district, the opposition Congress will distribute bottles of Ganga Jal among the electorate in 27 Assembly constituencies of Madhya Pradesh – where by-elections are slated in the coming months.
Titled Shuddh Ke Liye Yuddh (War for Purity) the campaign was launched by the MP Congress Committee (MPCC) chief and ex-CM Kamal Nath on Thursday.
“The campaign will see half litre bottles being distributed from door to door among voters in the 27 Assembly segments, where by-elections are slated in the coming months. The campaign is aimed at purifying these constituencies of the opportunist politics nexus of the BJP and the former Congress MLAs (now in BJP), which led to the fall of the popular Kamal Nath government in MP during March 2020,” an official statement from the State Congress said on Thursday.
Importantly, in the 2018 Assembly elections, a few Congress candidates, including PC Sharma (ex-CM Digvijaya Singh’s close confidant) had distributed bottles of Ganga Jal in their constituencies, including the Bhopal South West.
According to the party sources, “The Shudh Ke Liye Yudh campaign is meant at exposing the former Congress MLAs who conspired with BJP to bring down the Congress government in March and then appealing the electorate to vote against the same ex-legislators, who will now fight from the same constituencies on BJP tickets.”
Importantly, 22 Congress MLAs (19 of them Jyotiraditya Scindia loyalists) had quit from the Vidhan Sabha and the Congress in March, leading to the fall of the 15-months-old Kamal Nath government in the state, where the Congress returned to power after 15 years in December 2018.
After the Shivraj Singh Chouhan led BJP government returned to power in the state on March 23, three more Congress MLAs quit the Vidhan Sabha and joined the BJP. Owing to the resignation of the 25 Congress MLAs and demise of two legislators, by-elections have been necessitated in 27 seats of the state.
In the auspicious Shrawan month, the Congress had embarked on Har Har Mahadev Ghar Ghar Mahadev campaign in Sanwer Assembly seat of Indore (one of the 27 seats where by-elections are slated) by distributing among people, the miniature Shiv Lingas sourced from Haridwar.