Lok Sabha elections: Keen contest on cards in Satna

BHOPAL: With victory margin shrinking with each Lok Sabha elections, the Satna constituency is all set to witness another keen contest this time. The political scene in this seat located in Vindya region of the state can be well gauged from the fact that even during the 2014 pro-Narendra Modi wave, the BJP candidate Ganesh Singh could just manage to scrape through with a wafer thin margin of 8,688 votes against Ajay Singh of the Congress.

While the BJP got thumping victories in majority of the seats in the state like Shahdol, Bhopal , Indore, Vidisha, Dhar, Jabalpur and neighbouring Sidhi with victory margins ranging from one lakh to even 4.10 lakh votes in 2014, Satna proved to be a real humdinger of a contest.

The BJP was overjoyed at retaining the seat for the fifth time in a row in 2014, but in the revelry, it was quite clear that Ganesh Singh had not gained much ground since 2009. Three-time BJP MP Ganesh Singh won in 2009 by a lesser margin of 4,418 votes against BSP’s Sukhlal Kushwaha, a drastic fall from his 2004 margin of 83,590 votes against former deputy speaker Rajendra Singh of the Congress.

Though both Congress stalwarts Ajay Singh and Rajendra Singh lost the November assembly polls but they are still in the race for Congress candidature from Satna Lok Sabha seat. Ajay Singh gave a tough fight to Ganesh Singh in 2014, while Rajendra Singh has contested the seat thrice with no luck. Ajay Singh’s late father and former chief minister Arjun Singh won the seat in 1991, but was defeated in 1996 when he contested as candidate of the Tiwari Congress.

The BJP has fielded Ganesh Singh again from Satna. At present BJP has legislators in five of the seven assembly segments, including Raigaon, Nagod, Maihar, Amarpatan and Rampur-Baghelan, while Congress has only two MLAs in Chitrakoot and Satna assembly seats.

The constituency has a predominant OBC population and Ganesh Singh belongs to the OBC community. The Congress’ probable candidates – Ajay Singh and Ranjendra Kumar Singh – belong to the upper caste Thakur community. The total number of voters as on February 22 was 15,63,435 comprising 8,25,414 males and 7,37,994 females.