The seven Seats going to poll in the fifth phase on Monday are very crucial as these constituencies come under Bundelkhand, Vindhya and Narmada regions of Madhya Pradesh.
This would be the second of the four rounds of polling in the State. The remaining two phases are scheduled for May 12 and May 19.
The Congress has fielded new faces in all seven Seats, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has once again relied on its old faces in five Seats.
Star campaigners from both the major political parties like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi and BJP chief Amit Shah addressed election meetings in these constituencies.
All these seven Seats were won by the BJP in the last elections. However, going with its surveys, the BJP has replaced four candidates. The BJP is facing resentment from within against the candidates in Khajuraho and Betul.
Damoh, Tikamgarh and Khjuraho, the three Seats in the Bundelkhand region gearing up for the polling, have strong BJP vote bank.
Damoh constituency has been in the possession of the BJP since 1989. The Congress has fielded Pratap Singh Lodhi against Prahlad Patel, a two-time winner. The Congress has changed its candidate on each of the past four occasions. It ignored the recent acquisition from the BJP, Ramkrishna Kusmaria, who won the seat twice.
Tikamgarh also has a contest between experience and fresh face. The BJP has retained Union Minister Virendra Khatik, seeking a third term, while the Congress has nominated state women's Congress Secretary Kiran Ahirwar. An untested Ahirwar is toiling on gamely hoping to benefit from resentment against Khatik over his long incumbency.
Khajuraho boasts of having returned former Chief Minister and Union Minister Uma Bharti four times. Both the Congress and the BJP have fielded new faces this time. The RSS which had insisted on fielding Vishnu Dutt Sharma in the face of near rebellion in Bhopal has shifted him to Khajuraho.
The Congress has settled for Kavita Singh, wife of Vikram Singh Natiraja, MLA from Raj Nagar. Natiraja hails from an influential Royal family in the neighbourhood. It will be interesting to see how the RSS ensures victory of Sharma who has no connection with the constituency.
The BJP has dominated the constituency since in 1989 and has returned the Congress candidate Satyavrat Chaturvedi once from 1999 to 2004. His mother, Vidyawati Chaturvedi, was elected twice in the early 1980s. Former State Minister Nagendra Singh, member of outgoing Lok Sabha, has apparently been denied ticket over incumbency fatigue.
