Last minute persuasion brought several dissenters from Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress back to party folds, but several others defied pleas to remain in the fray as independents on the last day of withdrawal of nominations on Wednesday.
Prominent among those who declined to budge include BJP former ministers KL Agrawal from Bamori and Ramkrishna Kusmaria who has filed nomination as independent from Damoh and Patharia, BJP’s exMLA Narendra Singh Kushwah from Bhind, Samiksha Gupta the former Gwalior mayor of BJP who has entered poll fray from Gwalior South, ex-MLA Brahmanand Ratnakar from Berasia in Bhopal.
BJP made hectic efforts to appease Kusmaria, an influential leader from Bundelkhand but he refused to budge and even did not meet senior leader Prabhat Jha who went to persuade him to withdraw dissent.
For Congress those who declined to withdraw nominations include Xavier Meda from Jhabua, Surendra Singh from Burhanpur and Vishal Rawat from Jobat. Party reportedly expelled dissidents Xavier Meda from Jhabua and Vishal Rawat from Jobat for not withdrawing nominations.
Congress expressed satisfaction over the withdrawals while the BJP exhibited a surprising strategy saying there is no deadline for bringing back rebels.
Among those who withdrew their nominations included Mahendra Singh Patidar, the Patidar community state head who backtracked in favour of Congress nominee from Mandsaur, BJP’s Lalit Porwal from Indore-3, BJP’s Jitendra Daga from Huzur and Ravindra Awasthi from Bhopal North, BJP’s ex-MLA Raghavaji from Shamshabad, Preeti Agnihotri and Kamlesh Khandelwal of Congress from Indore-1.
Meanwhile, some others were not as amicable as these candidates included- from the BJP- Rajkumar Mev from Maheshwar, Kailash Kushwah from Pohri, Sunil Ghevra from Malehra, Rajan Mandoi from Barwani, Mukesh Malhotra from Vijayapur, Manish Sharma from Lahar, Ramesh Kahtik from Karera, Manoj Deharia and Lata Mehsaki from Amla and Naresh Jindal from Sheopur.
While Arvind Chandel from Singrauli, Hamir Singh from Javra, Rana Vikram Singh from Susner, Pratap Singh from Ghodadongri, Madhu Gehlot from Agar, Kedar Dabar from Bhagwanpura, Maya Trivedi from Ujjain North, Om Singh Bhati from Suwasra, Manish Patel from Maihar and Jaisingh Darbar from Ujjain South.
“There is no deadline for persuading rebels and we would still make attempts to bring back those who are upset,” BJP state in charge Vinay Sahastrabuddhe told the media after threatening action against rebels early in the day.
Congress in-charge of media department Shobha Oza claimed that most of the rebels have withdrawn nominations after intervention of party seniors and only few of them are left in the fray.