The Politics of Road Shows | PM and Amit Shah Counter Gandhi Siblings in Closely-Contested Seats

Indore, Jabalpur and Bhopal were the hotspots in the elections in Madhya Pradesh for massive road shows both by the BJP and Congress, with top leaders from either camp trying to counter the other in some closely-contested seats in the three urban centres.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose Indore to carry out his sole road show on Tuesday in these elections, with him travelling nearly 1.5 km mainly in the constituency of Indore-1. This is the prestigious seat where BJP’s national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya is in a close contest with Congress sitting MLA Sanjay Shukla.

Priyanka Gandhi has also done a road show for Shukla in the Indore-1 constituency last week. The PM started the road show in Indore-1 seat from the ‘Bada Ganpati’ temple and ended it at ‘Devi Ahilya’ statue, covering two more seats of Indore-3 and Indore-4. Incidentally, Rahul Gandhi had also done a big road show in Indore in the 2018 state polls.

Jabalpur became another prominent venue for such competing road shows between the top leadership of the BJP and the Congress. Rahul Gandhi did a 3-km-long road show in Jabalpur last week, chiefly in the Jabalpur (West) constituency, where Congress two-time sitting MLA and former state finance minister Tarun Bhanot is in a stiff contest with BJP’s MP of Jabalpur and former BJP state president Rakesh Singh, who is contesting now for the MLA seat of Jabalpur (West).

Union home minister Amit Shah campaigned in Jabalpur (West) seat on Tuesday where he took out a rally for Rakesh Singh and a road show before the campaigning that will be ending tomorrow.

Another venue for a high-profile road show this election season has been Old Bhopal where Rahul Gandhi took out a big road show on Monday, covering the two Old Bhopal seats of Bhopal (north) and Bhopal (central). These are the only two seats in the state where the Congress has given Muslim candidates and both adjacent seats are minority-dominated ones. Bhopal (north) has been won by Congress’s Arif Aqueel since 1998 and this time his son, Arif Aqueel, is in the contest from the Congress. From Bhopal (central), Congress sitting MLA Arif Masood is in the contest again. The BJP is putting up a fight here but faces a tough task of dislodging the Congress on these seats.