In an election which looks to go right down to the wire, results in a few assembly seats might give a glimpse of which way the wind is blowing in Madhya Pradesh.
That’s because voters in these seats have a knack of voting in the party that has eventually gone on to form government in that state.
Most of these seats fall in the Malwa-Nimar region, which is in terms of seat-share, the biggest in the state.
A truism often mentioned in context of MP elections is that whoever goes on to win the Malwa-Nimar region, with 66 out of 230 seats, goes on to win the state. But the more interesting bit about this region is that it always votes decisively in favour of one party.
Take the latest example, in the 2013 elections, the BJP won 56 seats from this region.
Let’s take a look at MP’s bellwether seats.
Khargone
This assembly seat in the state’s South-West Nimar region has since 1967 maintained a 100 percent rate of picking the same candidate whose party has formed government in the state. Both the Congress and the BJP have repeated their candidates this time.
BJP's Balkrishan Patidar defeated the Congress' Ravi Ramesh Chandra Joshi in the last election here by a margin of 6,800 votes.
Sendhawa
Located just a few kms away from Khargone, Sendhawa is another assembly seat in the Nimar region. This is the second most accurate seat, in terms of appointing the MLA of the winning party. Of the 10 elections since 1972, Sendhawa has elected the winning party’s MLA 10 times in a row.
There is another reason to look-out for the results in this seat. This is a reserved seat with a dominant tribal population. Tribals are the biggest sub-religious vote group in the state. Their vote will be crucial for either party to swing the election in their favour.
In this context, Sendhawa may give an indication of the party they’re likely to support in the rest of the state also.
Apart from Khargone and Sendhawa, these are the rest of the bellwether seats –
Budhni, in Sehore district, located in Vindhya Pradesh region. This region has 30 seats of which the BJP won 16 seats in the last elections and the Congress won 12.
Manawar, in Dhar district is another bellwether seat in the Malwa region. As is Nepanagar in Nimar region’s Burhanpur district.
Naryoli, in Sagar, is such a seat in the Bundelkhand region. This is another region that the BJP had swept in the last elections, winning 20 out of 26 seats.
Niwas is an assembly seat in Mandla district in Mahakoushal region. As is Sausar in Chhindwara. Mahakoushal is another tribal dominated region, one of whose Parliamentary constituency – Chhindwara – was one of the only two seats that weathered the BJP storm back in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Kamal Nath, who won then, is working to bring his party back here.
Comments
0 comment