BHOPAL: The Congress continues to be hit by defections by prominent leaders to the ruling BJP amid the ongoing Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh. The latest switchover on Tuesday is seen as one of the biggest jolts the grand old party has suffered during the last two months.
Six-time sitting MLA, veteran OBC leader and former MP Ramniwas Rawat ended his decades-old association with the party and joined the BJP at a poll rally of the ruling party in his assembly constituency Vijaypur in Sheopur district, which forms part of the Morena Lok Sabha seat.
Rawat’s switch to the BJP in presence of CM Dr Mohan Yadav and state party chief VD Sharma happened a day after the Congress had suffered huge embarrassment following the withdrawal of nomination papers by its Indore Lok Sabha candidate Akshay Kanti Bam, who too had subsequently joined the BJP.
Rawat’s entry into the BJP assumed significance, as it happened at the same time that former Congress president Rahul Gandhi addressed a poll rally in the adjoining Bhind-Datia SC constituency of the same Gwalior-Chambal region.
But it was not just Rawat who switched from the Congress to the BJP, as Morena’s mayor Sharda Solanki too joined the latter on the stage of the same poll rally in Vijaypur (Sheopur). With Solanki joining the BJP, now three out of the five Congress mayors, including Jagat Bahadur Singh ‘Annu’ (Jabalpur), Vikram Ahake (Chhindwara) and Sharda Solanki (Morena), have joined the BJP in the ongoing poll season.
After joining the BJP, Rawat said he took the decision to ensure proper development of his Vijaypur assembly constituency. He promised to script a new chapter of development in the area after joining.
Rawat’s departure to the BJP is being seen as a major loss for the Congress in the Gwalior-Chambal region, particularly in Morena Lok Sabha constituency, where his (Meena) caste voters number around one lakh in Sheopur and Vijaypur assembly segments. The BJP candidate Shiv Mangal Tomar is facing a tough fight against ex-BJP MLA and Congress candidate Satyapal Sikarwar.
Rawat who was a minister in the erstwhile Congress government led by Digvijaya Singh is among the most powerful Congress leaders of the Gwalior-Chambal region. Despite being considered close to Gwalior’s erstwhile royal Scindia family, Rawat had stayed back in the Congress, when Jyotiraditya Scindia along with 22 loyalist MLAs had walked into the BJP in March 2020.
But not being considered either for the post of state Congress president or the leader of opposition in the Vidhan Sabha after the change of guard in the MP Congress following the 2023 assembly polls debacle, Rawat was feeling ignored in the party on whose ticket he won six out of the eight assembly polls he contested from Vijaypur seat.
The former chief whip of the Congress in the Vidhan Sabha, Rawat was also upset on not being considered for the Congress ticket for the Morena Lok Sabha seat from where he twice finished runner-up behind the BJP’s Narendra Singh Tomar in 2019 and 2009.
Rawat had planned to join the BJP at the April 25 poll rally of PM Narendra Modi in Morena, but phone calls from ex-Congress president Rahul Gandhi and former MP CM Digvijaya Singh had delayed his exit.
Rawat’s entry into the BJP is another jolt to the Congress after the exit of ex-minister Deepak Saxena and ex-Union minister and former state party chief Suresh Pachouri.