- Congress, BJP both want to win seats anyhow
Jaiprakash Upadhyay, Sehore
Gradually, political activity is gaining momentum across the district and not just in urban areas. Discussions about politics have started in rural areas as well. Rural voters have started to be seen having political discussions in the village chaupalas and temples, whereas till now no candidate has got a ticket from either Congress or BJP. Although political discussions have started taking place in the rural areas, inflation remains a big issue here.
Today we are talking about Ashta, the biggest assembly seat of Sehore district. Most of the rural areas fall in this assembly constituency. There are 2 lakh 72 thousand 694 voters in this assembly seat. This is the largest assembly seat in the district, where not one but three factions of both the major political parties BJP and Congress exist, which are trying hard to get tickets for their supporters. This assembly seat is a safe assembly seat. Where there is a significant number of Scheduled Caste voters.
BJP stronghold for 34 years – Since 1985, no Congress candidate has been able to register victory here, this seat has remained in the account of BJP candidate only.
The number of voters in this assembly seat in the age group of 18 to 19 years is about 11 thousand 240. The number of elderly voters is 5355. 335 polling stations were created here for voting.
The party elders are trying to convince the young faces who are involved in politics and who were not given any attention in the party for 5.5 years. Some young faces have also become active after persuasion. This is the reason why these youth have started interacting with the voters in rural areas.
Defection continues in Ashta assembly constituency
This started at the time of District Panchayat elections. At that time, Gopal Engineer, who had lost the election from Ashta assembly constituency twice on Congress ticket, had switched sides from Congress and joined BJP. At that time, he was given the post of District Panchayat President as a reward, but his desire is to re-election to the Assembly. He wants to contest the assembly elections and now he is trying to get a ticket for the assembly seat from BJP. Here, the old BJP leaders are not lagging behind in sabotaging his plans. Similarly, Prajatantrik Party leader Kamal Singh Chauhan has also switched sides and joined Congress. He has his own vote bank and he is also trying to get a ticket from Congress. Only time will tell which leader is awarded the ticket from which party.
