Not projecting anyone as a Chief Ministerial candidate and putting up several Members of Parliament (MPs) and Union Ministers in the contest also seems to have proved to be a masterstroke. Most of the BJP leaders have been fielded on relatively difficult assembly seats, where the party had lost in the last polls. This not only blunted the fatigue that the voters had for Chouhan who has been the CM for 18 years, but also gave a chance to the MPs to out-perform each other in their respective strongholds and not only win the ‘difficult’ seats but also influence other constituencies in the BJP’s favour. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded seven MPs and Union Ministers for the four assembly polls and their strongest contenders in the fray for state assembly elections included Kailash Vijayvargiya, Prahlad Patel and Narendra Singh Tomar. Central leadership has nominated party's national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya from Indore-1 assembly seat from where he unseated Congress Sanjay Shukla. BJP’s OBC champion Prahlad Patel, the minister of state for food processing, who contested from Narsingpur defeats Congress' Lakhan Singh Patel.

 

Narendra Singh Tomar, who has been fielded from the high-profile Dimani constituency in the Morena district, secured victory with 24,429 votes. Likewise, Uday Pratap Singh, the sitting Member of Parliament from Hoshangabad, fighting from Gadarwara wins. Riti Pathak, member of the Lok Sabha from Sidhi contested her first assembly election and registerd victory. Rakesh Singh, the incumbent MP from Jabalpur, from the Jabalpur-West assembly seat wins. The BJP has also fielded Ganesh Singh, a four-time Lok Sabha MP, from the Satna assembly seat, which the party again lost whereas Faggan Singh Kulaste, the Minister for state for rural development, also lost by 9,723 votes from Niwas.

 

On the other hand, race for the CM face in the BJP camp is now wide open in Madhya Pradesh, but Chouhan is now putting up a strong case for another term ahead of the Lok Sabha polls as it is his 'Ladli Behna' scheme that has delivered the state to the BJP. The BJP’s decision to pitch the election on the face of Narendra Modi also proved to be a success as the PM’s popularity in Hindi heartland worked wonders for the party. Madhya Pradesh has proven true the BJP’s poll slogan that ‘MP ke mann mein Modi hai’. Now, it is over to Modi and the BJP top leadership to decide who the next CM of Madhya Pradesh will be.