BHOPAL: It’s not just 51% vote share that the BJP is targeting in Madhya Pradesh in the 2023 Assembly polls, but also the 48 seats which the party has been struggling to win in the previous elections.
Most of these seats are in the tribal-dominated districts, particularly those in the Mahakoshal region. Many of these seats have been electing Congress stalwarts, including Digvijaya Singh loyalist and former minister Dr Govind Singh, who remains undefeated from Lahar since 1990 and another former minister KP Singh Kakkaju, who has been undefeated from Pichhore seat of Shivpuri district since 1993.
Other tough seats on the saffron party target include Gandhwani and Raghogarh seat, which since 1977 has been the pocket borough of Digvijaya Singh’s family.
According to state BJP insiders, the party which has already started preparing for the November 2023 Assembly polls, has started devising ground strategy for these 48 seats.
“Senior organisational leaders of the party will soon be appointed as prabharis (in-charges) for each of these tough seats, on the lines of present UP BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh having been tasked with winning the Congress bastions Ratlam-Jhabua, Guna and Chhindwara Lok Sabha seats for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Based on continuous booth level micro planning, the party had managed to win two of these three Congress bastions, Guna and Ratlam-Jhabua in 2019 LS polls,” a senior MP BJP leader told this newspaper.
