By-election for Maihar Assembly constituency scheduled for February 16 would be interesting in many ways besides being an acid test for both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Opposition Congress.
The most interesting feature of this by-poll is that both the major political players of the State the BJP and the Congress would be vying to retain the seat.
Technically, the BJP would not be retaining the seat as in 2013 it was Congress that emerged victorious from here. But the candidate saffron party is fielding is Narayan Tripathi who in 2013 won from Maihar on Congress ticket. In, just ahead of lok Sabha elections he had joined the BJP. Now the winner of 2013 Tripathi would be again in the field but this time from BJP and this way, Tripathi would be on the defending side as he would be under pressure to retain it.
While the grand old party would be in tremendous pressure to retain the seat as Tripathi was elected from there in 2013 on its ticket.
So, technically it is Congress that won this seat in 2013 and would go all out to retain the seat but as the winning candidate shifted sides and joined BJP on behest of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan thus the Chief Minister and BJP are also under tremendous pressure to win the seat in addition the BJP candidate Narayan Tripathi is also under great pressure to bring the seat in his party fold.
Tripathi has contested three elections from Maihar and has emerged victorious twice. In 2003 and 2008 he contested on Samajwadi Party ticket and registered victory in 2003 while in 2008 he faced defeat while in 2013 he contested on Congress ticket and emerged victorious and now in all probabilities would be in the fray for by-poll scheduled on February 13 from BJP. Just before the lok Sabha polls in 2014 he switched to BJP due to his indifferences with Congress heavyweight and former leader of opposition in the MP Assembly Ajay Singh who holds clout over the region in that his constituency comes.
However, it would be interesting to watch that whether electorate imposes faith in Tripathi for the third time or would it help Congress by giving it ninth chance to continue its victory march in the state.