The farm loan waiver was the biggest poll issue in Madhya Pradesh as 70% voters in the state are dependent on agriculture. This was only till the Modi wave hit the state. With the model code of conduct in place, 25 lakh or 50% farmers eligible for loan waiver couldn't get it.
"There were others who were waiting for their money to get deposited. Hence, within 10 days after the code of conduct, the BJP was successful in spreading the narrative that the Congress's loan waiver scheme was hogwash," explained MP based senior journalist Anurag Dwary.
Clearly, what topped this narrative in MP was the Modi wave. In the Assembly elections that concluded in December, Congress clocked 41% of the total votes in the state while BJP 41.5% votes. The Congress got more seats than BJP and they won the state. However, on Thursday only CM Kamal Nath's son Nakul Nath could win from the family pocket borough of Chindwara. All the rest of 28 seats from MP went to the BJP.
The Indore and the Guna seat was a test case of how the Tsunamo hit MP. The Indore Lok Sabha constituency represented by LS speaker Sumitra Mahajan has 2.5 lakh Marathi voters. When the party gave ticket to a Sindhi speaking Shankar Lalwani one expected that the resident Marathi voters will desert the BJP. However, the inverse happened and Lalwani got around 5.5 lakh votes, 1.5 lakh more than what Mahajan had got in 2014.
"The Guna seat is another case in point which was represented by the Scindia family since three generations by Vijayaraje Scindia, then Madhavrao Scindia followed by Congress general secretary Jyotiraditya Scindia. He lost by around one lakh votes. This election has defied all old political theories," said veteran journalist Abhilash Khandekar.
According to Khandekar, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and MP together sends 65 MPs and Congress despite winning all three states decisively could win only 3 seats in the elections. Hence, one cannot single out MP. The common thread was the Modi factor, the hyper-nationalist narrative and BJP's success in adding maximum beneficiaries to the government schemes. The Congress slow killing of intra-party institution added to its downfall, concludes Khandekar.
POINT TO PONDER
- BJP won the last two LS seats where counting went on well past Thursday midnight, taking its overall tally to 28 in Madhya Pradesh
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