Only CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan can help BJP retain Vidisha

Vidisha: This assembly seat, a saffron fortress, has become the ruling BJP’s toughest dilemma in election year after a sodomy charge and sex CD scandal hit the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in July.

Chouhan’s former FM and sitting octogenarian MLA, Raghavji Bhai, became a major embarrassment for BJP after his 30-year-old male help levelled charges of forced unnatural sex against him. Raghavji Bhai quit, was expelled from the party, and sent to judicial custody.

Four months on, the Raghavji nightmare continued to haunt the BJP even as it distributed election tickets. Vidisha’s candidature was kept pending till the very end. In four lists, the party declared candidates for 229 of 230 seats — Vidisha remained undecided till a day before the nomination-fi ling deadline. Sushma Swaraj then told reporters that the CM would be fielded from the seat in addition to his own Budhni constituency.

Vidisha assembly is no average constituency. It is one of the seven assembly seats that comprise the Vidisha Lok Sabha constituency represented by former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1990, CM Chouhan for fi ve terms. The current MP from here is Sushma Swaraj. If the BJP were to lose Vidisha assembly seat over a sodomy scandal, the party would face political mortification at the national level.

The BJP fi nally chose its mascot CM. Chouhan, it felt, was the only one who could calm the ruffled feathers of Raghavji’s followers . The infl uential Jain community is annoyed how an elderly member of their society was jailed. Ajay Jain, a local journalist says it is only because Chouhan has been fielded here that BJP would perhaps be forgiven. Without Chouhan, the party could have lost three assembly seats – Vidisha, Shamsabad and Basoda where Raghavji’s followers still call the shots.