“Can you see any excitement in the city,” asked Subhash Mishra, a security guard from Gwalior, on Friday, just hours before campaigning for the Lok Sabha seat came to a close ahead of voting on Sunday.
“There is no excitement this time,” he said, as he took shelter from the heat under a tree with friends in the Gwalior Fort complex.
Earlier, though, there had been some excitement for Congress and BJP workers. Congress president Rahul Gandhi addressed a rally in support of the party candidate, Ashok Singh, on Wednesday. And on May 5, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had campaigned for the BJP’s Vivek Shejwalkar.
Mr. Singh contested the seat unsuccessfully three times, losing in 2014 to the BJP’s Narendra Singh Tomar by 26,699 votes. This time, the BJP has moved Mr. Tomar to neighbouring Morena, which he had represented earlier. Mr. Shejwalkar, a two-time Mayor of Gwalior, has replaced the Union Minister in Gwalior.
The common refrain among residents and political workers is that Gwalior’s politics “ mahal se chalta hai (is run from the palace)”, referring to members of the erstwhile Scindia royal family that has been well represented in both the BJP and the Congress over the years.
“I don’t feel like voting,” said Sanjay Agarwal, a businessman in the city’s busy Maharaj Bada area. “We all took interest till Scindia ji [the late Madhavrao Scindia] was here. The Congress has put up the same candidate again and the Mayor is someone who doesn’t even know what working for the people means. Only Modi matters in this election,” he asserted.
Madhavrao Scindia had represented Gwalior before shifting to the neighbouring Guna in 1999, after which the seat has been with the BJP for the most part, with his sister Yashodara Raje Scindia having been the BJP MP between 2007 and 2014.
According to a Congress leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity, this time, there was some tension in the Congress camp over the candidacy of Mr. Singh, who is considered to be an ally of former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and Bhopal candidate Digvijaya Singh rather than of the Scindia scion, Jyotiraditya Scindia. In fact, when Mr. Gandhi addressed the rally on May 8, Mr. Scindia was absent. Mr. Scindia is said to have sought the Gwalior ticket for his wife, Priyadarshini Raje, according to party officials, who declined to be identified.
Fourth time lucky?
Mr. Singh, however, was sure that the fourth time would be the charm.
“We will win this time. Last time, the BJP was in power in Madhya Pradesh and people saw that I was made to lose on counting day. The gains we made in the Assembly election will only increase on Sunday. We will win in the city also, apart from rural areas,” he said, referring to the 2018 Assembly polls where the Congress won seven of the eight Assembly seats in the constituency considered to be a BJP stronghold.
Mr. Shejwalkar could not be reached despite repeated attempts.
For young voters in Gwalior, what appeared to matter the most was jobs and Mr. Modi.
“There are very few chances to get jobs here,” said Vikas Sriwas, a computer science diploma student. “The BJP is at least trying to do something,” he said.
Rudra Singh Jat, a 19-year-old first-time voter, said the biggest problem for him was the lack of jobs. “Modi should be there in the Centre, and Congress in the State. At least, Modi will keep trying [to push development],” he said.
Published - May 11, 2019 09:30 pm IST
