BJP fails to get over Bahoriband defeat

BHOPAL: Bahoriband bypoll results have proved a bitter pill to swallow for ruling BJP, a party, which has been on a winning streak since 2008. On August 25, state BJP lost one of the three assembly seats that went to by-elections. Even though the party won other two seats ? Vijayaraghogarh and Agar with impressive margins, the party cannot forget humiliation of Bahoriband.
The topic came up for discussion at the state BJP working committee meet several times and, at one point, it was said even the party national leadership is concerned about loss of the seat. Addressing the meeting during the inaugural session, Union minister for social justice Thavar Chand Gehlot said, "The party candidate got 15,000 votes more than during November assembly polls and yet we lost the seat. The national leadership asked why and we explained that the BSP candidate joined the Congress and votes of those two parties merged resulting in our defeat."
Gehlot said the central leadership was disturbed about Bahoriband and asked what if this kind of a situation is repeated in the future. "We have assured national leadership that the state unit will work out a strategy to counter such a move in future," Gehlot added.
BJP had won Bahoriband scheduled caste reserved seat in Katni district, a Congress bastion in the November elections by a margin of 21,000 votes. But sitting MLA Prabhat Pandey died of a brain haemorrhage three months later. The BJP fielded his son Pranay Pandey for the by-polls on August 21. The Congress, meantime, fielded BSP candidate Saurav Singh who had polled 32,800 votes in November.
In the bypolls, Saurav broke away a large chunk of the BSP votes, which combined with the Congress and won the seat by a margin of 8,022 votes. The defeat has proved a shocker for the state BJP which has lost its first bypoll since the past eight years.
State party chief Nandkumar Singh Chouhan tried rationalizing loss of Bahoriband, but swore to win it back in 2018. "There is nothing to be disheartened as we had two of those three seats and we still maintain that count. We won Vijayaraghogarh with 53,000 votes and Agar with 27,500 votes and though the Opposition claims Bahoriband is a huge victory for them, yet we must understand that the seat has never been a BJP stronghold. The BJP candidate polled an incredible 69,000 votes, but we still lost by 8,000 because the Congress and BSP had joined together. However, let us take an oath to win back Bahoriband and henceforth make it our bastion in 2018," he added.