Representative image of voting.
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Bhopal: With the schedule announcement of byelection for one assembly seat Amarwara (ST) in Chhindwara district on Monday, the model code of conduct has been put in place from June 10 2024.
The byelection was necessitated after Kamlesh Shah, a three-time congress MLA from Amarwara, resigned on March 29 this year and joined the ruling BJP soon after. Shah subsequently resigned from the state assembly.
The schedule for the byelection was announced by the Election Commission on Monday. The election notification will be issued on June 14, and the last date for filing nomination papers will be June 21. The scrutiny of poll papers will be done on June 24, and the late date for withdrawing nomination papers has been set on June 16. The polling will take place on July 10 followed by counting on July 13.
Following the BJP’s victory in the Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat, which is Congress veteran Kamal Nath’s home turf, the saffron party has now set its sight to capture Amarwara assembly segment, the bypoll for which will be held on July 10.
Notably, the BJP candidate from the Chhindwara Lok Sabha constituency secured a lead of over 15,000 votes in Amarwara seat in the recently held general election.
The BJP has won all 29 Lok Sabha constituencies in MP. Historically, since 1972 the BJP has won the Amarwara (ST) seat, twice in 1990 and 2008 while the congress bagged it 9 times. The GGP (Gondwana Gantantra Party), a tribal outfit secured this constituency once in 2003.
The Amarwara assembly seat was won by Kamlesh Shah on a congress ticket in the November 2023 elections when he defeated BJP nominee Monika Manmohan Shah Batti by a margin of 25,086 votes.
In the recent Lok Sabha election, BJP candidate Bunty Vivek Sahu defeated former Chhindwara MP and congress candidate Nakul Nath by a margin of 1.13 lakh votes. According to EC data, the BJP secured 93,512 votes while congress received 78,473 votes in the polling stations under the Amarwara assembly seat during the general election, giving the BJP a lead of over 15,000 votes in this seat. Political observers suggest that Kamlesh Shah, now with BJP, is likely to be fielded by the saffron party for the Amarwara seat.
Meanwhile, it will be interesting to know the schedule of other assembly seats in MP that are set to vacated in due course to time. Budni assembly seat in Vidisha Parliamentary constituency held by Shivraj Singh Chouhan will be vacated soon. Similarly, Bina seat in Sagar Parliamentary constituency and being represented by Nirmala Sapre of INC will also go to poll after she quit the grand old party to join the BJP. Another seat of Vijaypur in Morena Parliamentary constituency and being represented by Ramniwas Rawat is set to witness the bypoll.
In addition, one Rajya Sabha seat being represented by Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who won Lok Sabha seat from Guna constituency, will be filled by a new candidate from saffron party.