Buoyed over its victory in the Jhabua parliamentary elections, the Madhya Pradesh unit of the Congress is working on winning the forthcoming Maihar Assembly by-election.
The Maihar by-poll could be announced in a few days and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has already started touring the constituency. In past one month, he has visited the place twice making several announcements.
The BJP has almost decided its candidate from the constituency - Narayan Tripathi - who has recently joined the saffron party quitting the Samajwadi Party (SP) reportedly on an assurance that he would be BJP's candidate from Maihar. The seat fell vacant after Tripathi resigned from the membership.
Since the Congress did not have any strong candidate in the region, it succeeded in bringing former Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Manish Patel to the party. It was claimed that Patel had remained in third position in the last elections there.
The enthusiasm of the Congress was witnessed in the lunch hosted by State Congress chief Arun Yadav, who had for the first time hosted the lunch at his official residence in the city. Almost all the party leaders of different factions were present there and better coordination among them was seen.
After a long time, such a gathering at the residence of any senior Congress leader was witnessed.
The party leaders, however, claimed that the feast did not have any relation with victory in Jhabua parliamentary election.
Regarding the Maihar by-poll, Yadav claimed that his party would emerge victorious in the by-poll. He stated that he would camp in the constituency along with Congress MP from Jhabua Kantilal Bhuria.