Assembly Elections 2018: Curtain call for campaign in Madhya Pradesh

An unimaginably powerful last-minute push by top BJP leadership to the high-voltage Madhya Pradesh campaign backed by massive financial resources seems to have provided the BJP an edge over its rival Congress which has given toughest ever contest in terms of poll preparedness in the past 15 years since the latter has been out of power.

The intense campaigning which had its highs and lows ended on Monday. The state, with 230-seat Assembly, goes to polls on 28 November and results would be declared on December 11.

BJP president Amit Shah staged an impressive roadshow in Indore just before the campaigning officially ended on Monday evening. On the preceding night he held a closed door meeting with state party bigwigs and strategists at a private hotel in the commercial capital to not only take stock of the Malwa and Nirmar region's 66 seats but also the remaining seats of the state which is likely to see a nail-biting finish.

Various initial reports had suggested that the Congress was inching closer to power by effectively fanning the anti-incumbency sentiments against Shivraj Singh Chouhan government. This, in turn, led the BJP to intensify its attack spearheaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself on the Congress.

Political observers said that a resourceful BJP surged ahead of the cash-starved Congress, with most of the big, small and medium newspapers, regional TV television channels and private FM channels flooded with advertisements centring around Shivraj Singh's achievements in the past 13 years. Poll watchers said that such an expensive, multi-pronged and no-holds-barred political campaign has taken everyone by a complete surprise.

While most of the public rallies of three top campaginers of the BJP —Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party chief Amit Shah and CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan — were broadcast live, Congress president Rahul Gandhi did not get as much coverage. "It's difficult to distinguish between paid news and genuine coverage," quipped a senior journalist.

The Congress, left to itself, did not have many star campaigners barring Jyotiraditya Scindia — who addressed 103 rallies and did 10 roads shows — and party president Rahul Gandhi who had started visiting the state since June this year and went to each region of the vast state including Baghelkhand, Bundelkhand, Malwa and Mahakoshal.

On the other hand, PM Modi addressed 10 big public rallies while Shah took 27 and CM Chauhan tok part in 178 rallies in less than 40 days. Chouhan has been in a whirlwind tour of the state for the past six months during which he took out a "Jan Ashirwad Yatra" that touched more than 180 seats of the state and ended just before the model code of conduct came into force on October 5.

This list of BJP campaign, however, does not include public meetings held by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and many others who went to different pockets of the state. The party is also getting back-seat support from the RSS which got angry with Congress president announcing a tacit ban on the outfit. The Congress manifesto had said it would ban RSS shakhas on the government premises, but it triggered a big controversy which consolidated the BJP vote bank and pushed Kamal Nath to the back foot.

Despite this, BJP is surely not sitting pretty and it has its own share of problems. Besides anti-incumbency, as many as 64 rebels are still in the fray, making things difficult for official BJP nominees, party sources said. They added, "Ticket distribution was not as per party's internal surveys and a few top leaders had their way in cornering a major chunk of tickets to their followers."

In all over 2,900 candidates are in the fray with a highest of 28 individuals trying their luck in Bhind district's Mehgaon seat of Gwalior-Chambal region while lowest four are from Gunnor seat of Panna district in Bundelkhand.