Polling in 8 LS seats in MP on May 13; to decide fate of BJP's Lalwani, Cong's Bhuria

Bhopal: Voting for the fourth of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Monday for eight seats in Madhya Pradesh where BJP's sitting MP Shankar Lalwani is in the fray from Indore and Congress strongman Kantilal Bhuria from Ratlam.

Of the total 29 seats in MP, polling is over in 21 in the first three phases of the general elections.

On Monday, polling will be held in the ST-reserved constituencies of Ratlam, Dhar and Khargone, SC-reserved seats of Dewas and Ujjain, and Mandsaur, Indore and Khandwa.

Voting will take place from 7 am to 6 pm for which 18,007 polling stations have been set up in the eight constituencies, as per officials.

A total of 74 candidates - 69 men and five women - are in the fray in the fourth phase, Madhya Pradesh's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Anpam Ranjan told reporters.

There are 1,63,70,654 eligible voters, including 82,48,091 men, 81,22,175 women and 388 third gender persons, he said.

The eight constituencies, spread over 64 assembly segments in 15 districts in the state’s Malwa-Nimar region, are considered the bastion of the BJP.

The Indore Lok Sabha seat has the maximum number of 14 candidates and Khargone has the least five nominees.

Out of the eight seats, Indore also has the highest number of eligible voters at 25,26,803, while Ujjain has the least number of 17,98,704 electors, the CEO said.

The fight between former Union minister Kantilal Bhuria (73) and state Forest Minister Nagar Singh Chauhan’s wife Anita Chauhan, the BJP nominee, is as much for the Ratlam Lok Sabha seat as it is for supremacy in the tribal-dominated region between their families.

The two families have left nothing to chance.

Bhuria’s son Vikrant quit as Madhya Pradesh Youth Congress chief last month. In his resignation letter to Indian Youth Congress president Srinivas BV, he said he needed to devote maximum time in Ratlam to help his father.

Kantilal Bhuria, who was a minister in the Congress-led UPA government, has won from Ratlam five times. He was, however, defeated in 2014 and 2019.

In Indore, the ‘None Of The Above (NOTA)’ option has unexpectedly hogged the limelight after Congress candidate Akshay Kanti Bam withdrew his nomination at the last minute and joined the BJP.

As Bam's move set the stage for a one-sided contest for BJP’s Shankar Lalwani, who won from Indore by nearly 5.4 lakh votes last time, the Congress urged voters to hit NOTA.

Earlier, 21 constituencies in MP voted in three phases on April 19, April 26 and May 7.

Votes will be counted on June 4.