- Only BJP candidate Karan Singh Verma has won from this area seven times
- Congress candidate hoisted the flag of victory only twice
Jai Prakash Upadhyay, Sehore
As the assembly elections are approaching in the state, election activities have intensified in the four assembly seats of the district, namely Sehore, Ichhawar, Ashta and high profile Budhni.
Bharatiya Janata Party has announced its candidates for 39 assembly seats in the state. These may not include the four assembly seats of Sehore district, but it is well known that only the state chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan will contest from Budhni assembly seat; the names of the candidates for the remaining three seats are yet to be announced.
Recently, we had informed you about the situation of Sehore assembly seat, now it is the turn of Ichhawar assembly seat. This seat came into existence in 1977 from where the Congress candidate had won only twice. Whereas BJP candidate Karan Singh Verma had won from this area seven times. He also became the Revenue Minister, yet could not work in the field of development. Even today the voters of the assembly constituency are deprived of basic facilities. For this seat, it would be meaningless to say that this seat is a stronghold of BJP, rather it would be fair to say that this assembly seat is dominated by Khati community and it depends on the inclination towards the candidate. This is the reason why the elections here have become caste based.
Basic problems
The voters of this assembly seat are still struggling with basic problems. There are many rural areas where the connection between the village and the city gets severed during the rainy season. No industries could develop in this area. Villagers are troubled without roads. There is a government college at the Tehsil headquarters but students are forced to go to other cities for subjects other than BA and BCom. There is a hospital but there is a shortage of doctors and medical equipment, which was never taken care of. State Chief Shivraj Singh Chouhan had laid the foundation stone of a factory for making railway coaches in the assembly constituency years ago, but the factory could not be built till date. This is the reason that when Union Minister Prahlad Patel visited Ichhawar assembly constituency in the month of August, the workers and the public heckled him with basic problems and also raised slogans against the present MLA and demanded the party to give ticket to a new face in the upcoming elections. There are 2 lakh 2 thousand 253 voters in Ichhawar assembly constituency. In this, there are 1 lakh 15 thousand 729 male voters and 106515 female voters. If we talk about youth, there are 9215 voters in the age group of 18 to 19 years, and if we talk about the elderly 80 plus, then there are 4072 voters. 275 polling stations have been made here.
These are the contenders of both the parties
For Ichhawar assembly constituency, the contenders of both the major parties BJP and Congress have made their claims at the party level and have also become active in the assembly constituency.
Caste equation
As it is well known that Ichhawar assembly constituency is a Khati community dominated area. According to this, about 35 percent voters belong to the Khati community, 15 percent Parmar, 10 percent Muslim, 20 percent tribal, 10 percent scheduled and 20 percent other community voters. If we talk about the last assembly elections, it has been seen that the independent candidates have spoiled the game of Congress. In one election, because of an independent candidate, the Congress candidate had to be satisfied with getting third place.
