The presence of expelled Congress leader Rajkumar Patel in the election arena of Vidisha parliamentary seat as an independent, has made the election interesting in this high-profile constituency, which is at present represented by leader of Opposition in lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj.
The Congress has pitted AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh’s brother laxman Singh against Sushma Swaraj.
It is believed that Rajkumar Patel has filed his nomination papers from this constituency on the directions of Digvijay Singh, because Patel has been close to Singh.
In the past five years, when Patel remained expelled from the Congress, he was continuously been in contact with Digvijay Singh.
Sushma had won the 2009 lok Sabha election from Vidisha with a huge margin of over four lakh votes.
That time Congress candidate Rajkumar Patel's nomination was rejected on technical grounds.
Patel had failed to submit the mandatory 'B-Form' in original on time which led to rejection of his candidature after which he was expelled from the party for six years.
However, to prove his innocence in the matter, Patel had filed a poll petition in the Jabalpur bench of High Court in 2009 which is still pending. Patel, who had earlier been an MlA from Budhni and was also a minister in Digvijay Singh's Cabinet, was expecting that this time Congress will not only revoke his expulsion but also nominate him from Vidisha.But when Congress fielded laxman Singh against Sushma, Patel decided to contest as an Independent and filed his nomination papers on Wednesday before the Returning Officer in Raisen.
Incidentally, Patel belongs to Kirar caste which has a decisive vote bank in Vidisha constituency.
Vidisha, which traditionally has a stronghold of the BJP, has elected in the past number of stalwarts including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Rajmata
Vijayaraje Scindia, Ramnath Goenka, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Raghavji.
The Congress had won from Vidisha last time in 1984, when Pratap Bhanu Sharma emerged victorious from there after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Sharma had also won the seat in 1980 during the 'Indira wave'.