LS polls: Congress' Indore candidate withdraws nomination, could join BJP

A fortnight before polling on the seat, the Congress candidate for Madhya Pradesh’s Indore seat, Akshay Kanti Bam, withdrew his nomination on Monday.

This is a second setback for the Congress, and a third for the Opposition INDIA bloc. The nomination of the Congress’ Surat candidate was rejected last week, and that of the Congress-supported Samajwadi Party candidate from Khajuraho, which went to the polls in the second phase on April 26, was rejected earlier this month.

Indications were that Bam could join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Indore is scheduled to go to the polls in the fourth phase on May 13. The last day for filing of nominations for Phase-IV was April 25, and the last day for withdrawal of nomination was Monday, which means Indore will not have a Congress candidate against the BJP’s Shankar Lalwani.

The Congress termed the development as a threat to democracy. Experts flagged other concerns, including that the Election Commission declared the BJP’s Mukesh Dalal elected unopposed in Surat after the rest of the candidates withdrew from the race.

“As such, the Congress’ Indore candidate has not broken any law. But this indeed raises questions about individual morality and the functioning of our party system,” Jagdeep Chhokar, one of the founders of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a not-for-profit watchdog of electoral practices, told Business Standard.

Chhokar, however, said the instance of Surat, where the EC did not hold polling, needed a relook, since electors could have availed of the option of ‘none of the above’, or Nota, if polling were held. A few state Elections Commissions — those in Maharashtra, Haryana, Delhi and Puducherry — have declared that if Nota emerges as the winner in any election, there will be a mandatory re-polling. A petition in the Supreme Court by author Shiv Khera has sought that the rules of these four states be uniformly applied across the country. The four state ECs have held that declaring the second-highest candidate, in case Nota gets the highest votes, violates the underlying principle and object of Nota, the petition argues.

In Indore, according to a Press Trust of India report, witnesses saw 45-year-old Bam reaching the collector's office accompanied by local BJP legislator Ramesh Mendola and withdrawing his nomination. On his way back, he left in a car with Mendola, ignoring questions from journalists. Mendola is considered a close aide of state minister Kailash Vijayvargiya. Later, Vijayvargiya posted on social media platform X a picture showing Bam sitting in a car with him along with Mendola. The minister said Bam was welcome to join the BJP. "Congress Lok Sabha candidate from Indore Akshay Kanti Bam is welcome to the BJP under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party national president JP Nadda, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and state president VD Sharma," Vijayvargiya said in a tweet in Hindi. After withdrawing his nomination, Bam reached the local BJP office. The BJP also released a picture showing Bam standing next to Deputy Chief Minister Jagdish Dewda, Vijayvargiya and other party leaders.

According to a PTI report, last week a local court ordered the police to add an attempt to murder charge to a 17-year-old land grabbing case against Bam. The alleged victim, Yunus Patel, approached the court on April 5 with a request to add IPC's section 307, which a judicial magistrate accepted on April 24. The court directed the Madhya Pradesh police to add this section against Bam, his father Kantilal Bam and others. The case was registered in October 2007.

Besides Indore, seven more seats in Madhya Pradesh will go to the polls on May 13, concluding elections to the state’s 29 seats. In Indore, while nine candidates have withdrawn their nominations, 14 contestants are still in the fray. The development is particularly embarrassing for the Congress as Indore is the home district of party’s state president Jitu Patwari.

Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said: "The gentleman (Bam) in question has multiple universities and colleges in the state that we spoke about. One of the charges slapped against him was of murder. It is not natural, normal or ordinary that somebody just withdraws their candidature and joins the BJP... When we say democracy of India is under threat, this is the threat we speak about. The threat is to coax candidates, to put pressure on them to withdraw, to intimidate them, to intimidate their proposers, and that is what is happening," she alleged at a press conference at the All India Congress Committee headquarters in the national capital.