Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): State capital Bhopal is gearing up to elect its Member of Parliament in phase-3 of Lok Sabha Elections on May 7.
After remaining in headlines for its controversial MP Sadhvi Pragya, Bhopal will now witness a contest between ex-Mayor and BJP candidate Alok Sharma and Congress district president Arun Srivastava.
The clash between the two is turning into a fierce battle as on the one hand PM Narendra Modi held a road show for Alok Sharma in Bhopal; on the other side, SP and AAP workers came together to rally for Congress candidate Arun Shrivastava.
Sharma is pleased that both candidates are locals. He proudly says, “I’m a true Bhopali, and people have seen my hard work.” He also expressed his vision of a “triple-engine” government, where the BJP would lead both nationally and locally.
What does the data say?
In the Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency, the literacy rate stands at 68.73%. According to the 2011 Census, about 15.2% of the voters are from the SC category, about 2.9% are from the ST category, and around 19.7% are Muslims. Also, about 21.4% of the voters live in rural areas.
For the 2019 Lok Sabha Election, the total number of voters in the Bhopal constituency was recorded at 21.08 lakh.
Lok Sabha Elections 2019
In the last Lok Sabha election in 2019, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur from the BJP party won with around 8,66,482. Digvijaya Singh from the Congress party got the second highest votes, about 5,01,660. Madho Singh Ahirwar from the BSP party got the third highest votes, just 1,277. This showed that the BJP party was very popular in this area.
Lok Sabha Elections 2014
In the election in 2014, Alok Sanjar from the BJP party also won with a big margin, around 7,14,178 votes. PC Sharma from the Congress party got around 3,43,482 votes. Rachna Dhingra from the AAP party got around 21,298 votes.
What does the opinion poll say?
According to India TV-CNX opinion poll, BJP will emerge victorious on all 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh.
The BJP has been holding onto the Bhopal Lok Sabha seat firmly since 1989. However, there are signs that the Congress might have a chance this time.
Notably, Alok Sharma lost to Congress’ Atif Aqueel in assembly elections in December 2023. It would be interesting to see if Sharma could flip the game this time.
