65-year-old Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Madhya Pradesh's longest-serving chief minister, is contesting the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from the Vidisha seat in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled state.
Vidisha will vote in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday, May 7.
Chouhan is not new to Vidisha. After twenty years, he entered the struggle from the seat. Chouhan won the Vidisha Lok Sabha seat for the first time in 1991 and continued to win it consecutively until 2004.
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In 2005, Chouhan became the Madhya Pradesh CM for the first time. He remained the CM for the next three terms till December 2023, helping the BJP achieve another resounding victory in the state Assembly polls. The saffron party replaced Chouhan with Mohan Yadav as Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. It was during his tenure as Madhya Pradesh CM that Chouhan earned the title'Mamaji' mainly because of his government's social services aimed at women and girls.
“This is my family. I am not a politician. We fight and live together as a family. There is no neta, security, nothing. There are only cousins, brother and sisters. There is only love,” Shivraj Singh said Chouhan The Indian Express during his recent campaign.
Shivraj Chouhan vs Pratap Bhanu Sharma
In the battle for Vidisha, Chouhan is pitted against Congress veteran Pratap Bhanu Sharma, who has won the seat twice before, in 1980 and 1984. If Chouhan is back in the fray against Vidisha after 20 years, Sharma will be in the fray after 33 years. conflict. Sharma was defeated by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee by more than one lakh votes in the 1991 Lok Sabha elections.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP's Ramakant Bhargava won the seat by a margin of 5,03,084 votes, defeating Shailendra Patel of the Congress. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Sushma Swaraj of BJP won the seat for the second time in a row, defeating Congress candidate Lakshman Singh by a margin of four lakh votes.
Vidisha, a BJP bastion
Vidisha is a BJP stronghold. The seat near Bhopal was represented by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1991 and former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in 2009 and 2014. The Congress won the seat twice in 1980 and 1984, both times by Pratap Bhanu Sharma.
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Many wrote off Chouhan after the BJP decided not to elect him as chief minister last year. However, during one of the election rallies in Madhya Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who campaigned for the former CM, hinted at the possible inclusion of Chouhan in his next cabinet.
“As I have always said: I am a worker of a disciplined party. I am willing to adhere to any responsibility that the party imposes on me. From now on, I just want to become an MP,” Chouhan said Hindustani times.
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Published: May 6, 2024 02:03 PM IST