A different kind of war has been waged in the election bound Madhya Pradesh — the electoral war, and war rooms have been established at different places by the various political parties in the State with the purpose of combating with each other.
Unlike the real war where everything is valid for victory, there are certain rules for the ongoing electoral war, these rules are set by Election Commission and are called Model Code of Conduct.
The interesting feature of the ongoing electoral war is that not one or two but over two dozen war rooms have been set up by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and main opposition Congress at different places in the State. These war rooms are governed by different leaders of the relevant party but interestingly the leaders running the ‘war rooms’ meant to take on rival political parties have become tool of settling their personal scores with their opponents within the party and also a mean to promote themselves at the place of promoting party ideology and policies, thus killing the very purpose with which these war rooms were established.
Prominent war rooms run by the Congress leaders include ‘Congress MP War Room Media’ run by the chairman, Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee (Assembly elections media committee) and MP Premchand Guddu, another war room has been set up at the State Congress headquarters Indira Bhawan that is run by the staff of chairman Election Campaign committee for Madhya Pradesh and Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia. The IT cell of the State Congress is also running a war room run by its chairman Tanima Dutta besides a war room is run by the State chairman of the Minorities department Mohamed Saleem.
While the prominent war rooms of the BJP include the one that is run at Chief Minister’s house, one at the residence of Urban Administration and Development (UAD) Minister Babulal Gaur and the official war room that is managed by party’s Rajya Sabha MP Anil Madhav Dave run at party State headquarters. Besides the district-level war rooms set up by local leaders in their personal capacities are also functional.