Bhopal: Realising that each seat counts in the November 17 assembly polls, both the BJP and the Congress are leaving nothing to chance to deal with rebels in Madhya Pradesh.
Aware that if left ignored, rebels can pretty well cause damage beyond repair -- both the BJP and the Congress turned to biggies to mollify them. Though by Thursday -- the last day for the withdrawal of nominations, the two major parties succeeded in bringing round a large number of rebels to leave the fray in favour of the official candidates, still the vexatious issue has not completely gone away. This has caused much discomfiture for those tasked with making rebels understand that it will only harm their own party candidates' prospects.
With elections barely two weeks away, both parties are still working hard to persuade dissenters to withdraw from the race.
According to sources, Congress, to a great extent, has managed to cajole rebels. Javier Meda, former Congress MLA, who holds good influence among tribals, withdrew from Jhabua seat. He was contesting as an independent against senior Congress leader Kantilal Bhuria's son Vikrant Bhuria.
Jitendra Daga, former BJP MLA who had joined Congress in 2018 and was in the fray as an independent against Naresh Gyanchandani from Huzur seat till Thursday, decided to pull out in favour of the Congress candidate.
Congress spokesperson K K Mishra claimed that his party has done the damage control. "Almost 95% situation is in our control. Discussions are on with those who are defiant. We believe they too will see the reason."
Till today, from across the state in Congress, Antar Singh Darbar from Mhow seat, Amir Aqueel, Nasir Islam from Bhopal North seat and Premchand Guddu are some of the familiar faces, who refused to leave the electoral arena. Similarly, in BJP, Harshvardhan Singh Chauhan, son of former BJP state unit president late Nand Kumar Chauhan, quit the party with his supporters, to contest as an independent from Burhanpur seat.
Among others causing headaches for the BJP are former MLA KK Shrivastava and Nandram Kushwaha from Nivari seat in the backward Bundelkhand region of the state. Even the presence of Union home minister Amit Shah, who was in the state for three days, and senior party leaders from Delhi could not bring about a change of heart among the rebels.
In 2018 Assembly election, the Congress saw a huge improvement in its seat tally, resulting in the grand old party staging a comeback and forming the government. In that year, in terms of seats, the BJP lost 56 constituencies compared to the 2013 Vidhan Sabha elections.
In the 230-seat House, the Congress was ahead of its rival by winning 114 seats against the 109 seats won by the saffron party. The Congress returned to power in 2018 after 15 years but could not remain in saddle for long and lasted barely 15 months.
The Congress government, led by Kamal Nath, had lost majority after 19 MLAs from the Jyotiraditya Scindia's camp and three others walked out of the party to join the BJP.
