With the din and bustle of electioneering for all the 10 remaining lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh coming to an end on Tuesday, the candidates of all the mainstream political parties in Indore are keeping their fingers crossed for the D-Day. The candidates and their supporters, after the end of the campaigning at 6 pm, have started new electoral strategies to lure the voters in a last-ditch effort.
With the end of campaigning, sales and purchase of liquor in the district have been strictly prohibited and it will continue till end of voting on April 24. Disciplinary action would be taken against those who will be found violating the district administration’s order.
There are 23 candidates in the electoral fray for Indore lok Sabha constituency. However, the main fight is between Sumitra Mahajan of the BJP and Satyanarayan Patel of the Congress party. Though Samajwadi Party and the Aaam Admi Party have also fielded its candidates in the fray, their influence in the constituency are strictly restricted to limited pockets and their presence will unlikely to have any bearing on the poll outcome, political observers here say.
Since Tuesday morning, the Congress leaders and their workers were seen taking part in the public awareness drive in various localities of the city appealing people to essentially cast their votes. The drive launched under the aegis of the Madhya Pradesh Rajeev Vikas Kendra started from Kachi Mohalla and under the drive party workers and leaders moved across all 69 wards of the city appealing people to essentially exercise their voting rights.
On the other hand, the BJP taking in view the voting percentage in Madhya Pradesh for 19 lok Sabha seats, appears to be more concerned about peoples’ participation in the voting. Given the large number of candidates (23) seeking elections from Indore lok Sabha seat and presence of two EVM machines at the polling booths, the party has planned to reach maximum number of rural electorates in the last two days of elections.
Under its plan, the party has directed its rank and file in the rural areas of the constituency to go to the electorates along with fake ballot papers appealing people to cast their votes on lotus symbols.
Unlike previous elections, campaigning for the seat this year has remained a drab affair. Apart from CM Chouhan and the state BJP president Narendra Singh Tomar who took part in the road show of the BJP in Indore on Tuesday morning, there has been hardly any star campaigner for the BJP candidate in Indore.
Congress candidate Satyanarayan Patel, on the other hand, did have a distinct edge over his rival BJP candidate in terms of star campaigners campaigning for him. Those who took part in the road shows and convassed for him during the election campaign included Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh, Union minister Anand Sharma, film actor and MP Raj Babbar and film actress Nagma.