It is still a big question whether Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan would quit from Budhni or Vidisha.
Chouhan contested from two seats- Budhni and Vidisha in the Assembly elections held on November 25. After the counting, if Shivraj emerges victorious from both the constituencies, he would have to quit from one seat.
With this, people from both the constituencies have initiated efforts for mounting pressure on Shivraj that he should represent their constituency. People in Budhni feel that this has been traditional seat of Shivraj and thus he should retain this, while on the contrary, the local leaders in Vidisha are demanding that the Chief Minister, who earlier represented Vidisha lok Sabha constituency, should retain Vidisha.
Besides requesting the Chief Minister to retain the constituency, the local leaders have also come forth in claiming for party ticket in the by-election scheduled in next six months.
Besides Chief Minister’s wife Sadhna Singh, former MlA Rajendra Singh Rajput, Guruprasad Sharma, Ramakant Bhargava and Shiv Chaube are the front runner for contesting election from Budhni. Similarly, Mukesh Tandon, Sukhpreet Kaur and Jyoti Shah are prominent names in Vidisha.
BJP insiders claim that Shivraj is in dilemma as what to do. The decision of his election from Vidisha was taken in haste, when the situation arose after former Finance Minister Raghavji was expelled from the party.
It is believed that Raghavji was demanding ticket for his daughter and categorically told that his daughter should be given ticket, otherwise he would work against the party. He had also pointed out that if his daughter is denied ticket, no other than Shivraj should contest from there.