Denied ticket, BJP MLA floats new party to contest in 40 Assembly seats in MP

Bhopal, Oct 27 (IANS) After failing to get a ticket for himself from his own Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or the Congress, four-time MLA from Maihar seat Narayan Tripathi has decided to contest next month's Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections on his own party.

He has floated the Vindhya Janta Party (VJP) to contest the elections.

Tripathi, who has won the Maihar seat twice on BJP ticket and once each on Congress and Samajwadi Party tickets and has been demanding a separate Vindhya region, which comprises as many as 30 Assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh, released the first list of 25 VJP candidates in Bhopal on Friday.

Out of these 25 seats, at least 19 are part of the Vindhya region, which is also Tripathi's home turf.

Out of these 25, 18 seats were won by the ruling BJP in the 2018 Assembly polls.

The 25 VJP candidates, include local leaders of both the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress, who failed to get tickets from their respective parties to contest the November 17 polls.

Tripathi himself is contesting polls from his old seat in the newly-created Maihar district for the sixth time. Only once (in 2008) has Tripathi lost from Maihar seat, which has a predominantly decisive Brahmin population. He had won the seat for the first time as a SP candidate in 2003, but lost in 2008 to the BJP. He wrested the seat from the BJP on Congress ticket in 2013, but quit the Congress two and half years later, to win the 2016 by-election as a BJP candidate.

He retained the seat on a BJP ticket in 2018 polls also, but quit the party after denial of ticket recently. His efforts to get Congress ticket too turned futile, leaving him with no other option, but to contest himself.

Among the other 24 candidates named in the newly created party’s first list, at least two candidates were associated with the BJP, including Hari Om Gupta, a distant relative for ex-MP minister and senior BJP leader Umashankar Gupta, from Satna seat and Phoolmati Devi from Jaisingh Nagar-ST seat of Shahdol district. Phoolmati is the BJP-supported Shahdol district panchayat Vice-Chairperson, who quit the BJP recently.

Also, in Deotalab seat of newly-created Mauganj district, the VJP has decided to field Kunj Bihari Tiwari, the husband of Congress-backed Nai Garhi Janpad Panchayat chairperson. The seat is already witnessing a high-profile battle between the third time BJP MLA and current Speaker Girish Gautam pitted against his nephew Padmesh Gautam of the Congress.

"We will field at least 40 candidates, all for the cause of a separate Vindhya Pradesh. No matter whether we win or lose, or who loses or wins due to our presence in the contest, all we know is that these candidates will be the voice for a separate Vindhya Pradesh," Tripathi told the press.