Surat Replay: Congress Loses 2nd Candidate Just Before Vote – He Joins BJP

Akshay Bam, the Congress candidate in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore, has withdrawn from the race and joined the BJP. This surprising development was revealed in a post by senior Madhya Pradesh BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya, who welcomed Bam 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.

The announcement came on the last day of nominations for Indore, which is set to vote in the fourth phase of elections on May 13. The District Collector Ashish Singh confirmed that three candidates, including Congress’ Bam, withdrew their nominations as per the due procedure, which was also videographed.

Bam visited the district collector’s office to retract his candidacy, accompanied by BJP MLA Ramesh Mendola. The Congress had fielded 45-year-old Bam as its candidate against the incumbent BJP MP Shankar Lalwani in Indore, which has the largest electorate in Madhya Pradesh.

This move by Bam follows a series of party workers, including three former MLAs, switching to the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, indicating a trend of party defections. Furthermore, the opposition party had recently lost a candidate in Gujarat’s Surat due to dramatic events leading to the unopposed victory of the BJP’s candidate.

In response to Bam’s withdrawal, local Congress leaders in Indore expressed disappointment and questioned the leadership’s decision to nominate him as the candidate. They lamented that party workers who had dedicated years of service to the Congress were overlooked in favor of candidates like Bam.

During the scrutiny of nominations, the BJP’s legal cell had raised an objection to Bam’s nomination form for not disclosing a 17-year-old land dispute case with an addition of Section 307 of IPC (attempt to murder). However, poll officials overruled the objection and accepted his nomination, as the charge was added on the day he filed the nomination.