NEW DELHI: The Gond and Baiga tribe-dominated Mahakoshal region in Madhya Pradesh has turned into a beehive of political activity ahead of the Assembly polls. Eyeing the 48% women voters in the state, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan transferred the first Rs 1,000 monthly instalment into the accounts of 1.25 crore women under the CM Laadli Behana Yojana in Jabalpur on Saturday.
Considered the gateway to the entire Gondwana/Mahakoshal region, the same Jabalpur city (which is also called MP’s Sanskardhani or cultural capital) is also set to witness the launch of Congress’s Assembly poll campaign by party’s national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra today. Priyanka’s itinerary will begin with performing Narmada Pujan at Gwarighat – on the banks of river Narmada, before embarking on an 8-km road show to Gol Bazar-Shaheed Smarak, where she would address a poll rally. There, she is likely to announce women-centric plans by the Congress for the year-end Assembly polls. With Priyanka setting the tone for the year-end polls from Jabalpur, it will also send a positive message to another poll-bound state, the Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh, which neighbours the Mahakoshal region of MP.
Meanwhile, over 130 km from Jabalpur, CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan will be performing a bhoomi-pujan ceremony of a giant 108ft Parashuram statue and other religious projects in the presence of top Hindu seers in Vijayraghavgarh Assembly constituency of Katni district. The giant statue of Parashuram, a Brahmin icon and the sixth incarnation of Lord Vishnu and related Hindu religion projects are the brainchild of mining baron-turned-local BJP MLA Sanjay Pathak, who before 2014 was a Congress legislator.
Jabalpur, in particular, is considered the gateway of the Mahakoshal region. The same city houses the sasurals of national BJP president JP Nadda and state BJP chief VD Sharma. The 38-assembly seats strong region, which includes seven seats of state Congress chief Kamal Nath’s pocket-borough Chhindwara district, had been won by Congress in the 2018 Assembly polls.