Rahul Gandhi to Launch Lok Sabha Poll Campaign in Madhya Pradesh on April 8

Rahul Gandhi will seek votes for party candidates in Mandla and Shahdol constituencies on Monday. INDIA Bloc suffered a setback a few days ago when the nomination papers of SP leader and Khajuraho candidate Meera Yadav were rejected by the returning officer.

New Delhi:Rahul Gandhi will launch the Congress Lok Sabha poll campaign in Madhya Pradesh on April 8 when he will seek votes for party candidates in Mandla and Shahdol constituencies. According to party insiders, the Mandla candidate Omkar Markam is a close aide of Rahul Gandhi and is also a member of the Central Election Committee, which clears all party candidates.

“This is Rahul Gandhi’s first visit to the state after the poll dates were announced. He will address two separate rallies in the Sevni locality under the Mandla seat and in Shahdol on April 8. The Congress will certainly improve its tally in the state and the result will not be one-sided for the BJP,” AICC general secretary in-charge of Madhya Pradesh Jitendra Singh told ETV Bharat.

In the previous 2019 national polls, the Congress could win just one seat, Chhindwara of the total 29 seats in the state. Nakul Nath, the sitting Chhindwara MP and son of former chief minister Kamal Nath is contesting the seat again. While Kamal Nath as then state unit chief had rejected a pact with ally Samajwadi Party in the 2023 Assembly polls, Rahul’s Monday visit came at a time when the Congress and the SP are allies.

While Kamal Nath had rejected the SP’s demand of a few Assembly seats in the Bundelkhand area bordering Uttar Pradesh the grand old party later agreed to leave the Khajuraho parliamentary seat for the ally. However, the INDIA bloc suffered a setback a few days ago when the nomination papers of SP leader and Khajuraho candidate Meera Yadav were rejected by the returning officer because she had signed the document only at one place instead of the required two and had submitted an old certified copy of the electoral list.

Miffed over the development, the Congress and the SP leaders discussed the issue on Saturday and jointly decided to approach the courts against the rejection of the alliance nominee. “This is unfair. The returning officer is supposed to check the nomination papers before accepting them. If a signature was missing in the document he could have alerted the candidate. On the day of filing the nomination, the returning officer kept the candidate waiting for three hours. We will explore all legal options available,” AICC secretary in-charge of Madhya Pradesh CP Mittal told ETV Bharat.

Party insiders said the Khajuraho seat is important for the BJP as their state unit chief VD Sharma is a sitting MP and a 2024 candidate from there. For the same reason, the seat was important for the alliance, but there is a concern that the BJP may get a walkover now as there would be no candidate from either Congress or SP.

Both AICC in-charge Jitendra Singh and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav described the development as a ‘murder of democracy.’ As a second option, the alliance strategists are contemplating supporting the Forward Bloc candidate from Khajuraho RB Prajapati to unite the opposition votes against the BJP nominee. As a matter of caution, the alliance leaders urged the Election Commission to provide security to Prajapati as well as to all the opposition candidates.