After BJP's conclave, Congress gears up for civic polls in MP

To counter recently orgnised BJP's massive workers' conclave to motivate party workers for the upcoming civic body polls, opposition Congress is trying to come out of hush that has gripped it since its defeat in assembly elections and general elections.

BJP president Amit Shah addressed the concluding day of two-day Sankalp Adhiveshan last week in Bhopal to give a pep talk to as many as 25,000 party workers.

Interestingly BJP's senior leaders and union ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj, Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, Prakash Javadekar, Thavar Chand Gehlot and chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan motivated the workers who flocked in from across the state for the conclave.

At Congress camp senior leaders including state in-charge and AICC secretary Mohan Prakash have not appeared in Bhopal since months.

BJP has taken the elections on a serious note. Union minister Vankaih Naidu squeezed time off the preparations for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand polls to attend the conclave, while Sushma Swaraj termed the election as challenge and said, "smaller the election, bigger the challenge."

After suffering defeat in state assembly elections and general elections the local Congress party office has no plan to organise such mega-event. And there is a plausible reason too.

"They have all resources to organise such programmes," said K K Mishra, Congress spokesperson, "but such programmes have no impact when it comes to civic polls. We will make Vyapam Scam (professional board exam scam) as poll plank in the forth coming civic body elections as educated youth have been badly affected by the scam. Local issues are more important to us than organizing any big event. We will raise issues of corruption, non-availability of basic amenities at local level, encroachment and failure of the government on outbreak of Dengue fever."

A senior Congress leader requesting anonymity said, "Senior leaders from the state like Kamal Nath, Digvijay Singh, Jyotiradiya Scindia, Suresh Pachauri, and Satyavrat Chaturvedi are missing from local office, let alone any possibility of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi or party chief Sonia Gandhi addressing the workers. We have not seen state in-charge Mohan Prakash in Bhopal for months. Local workers have no clue who will distribute tickets."

Mishra, however, clarified, party had sent supervisors in all districts following advices of senior leaders.

"They will discuss about candidates and aspirants with office-bearers of district coordination committees and take opinion of local people before giving names of probable candidates to the party's state headquarter. Local people should have say in civic elections," Mishra said.

Party has asked its observers and district committees to finalise and handover names of candidates by November 6.

At, present, the ruling BJP controls 10 of the 14 municipal corporations in the state, while Bhahujan Smajwadi Party (BSP) and Congress each has their control on two other municipal corporation.

Another civic body is governed by Independents. BJP is more focused on civic elections as it wants to win elections with a cleansweep. The party had excelled in November 2013 Assembly elections by claiming 164 out of 230 seats and 27 out of 29 Lok Sabha seats in May this year.

Voting for two-phased civic body elections will take place on November 28 and December 2. Counting and results will be completed by December 6. There will be elections for 11 municipal corporations, 98 municipal councils and 264 municipalities.

As many as 8,524,687 voters are likely to exercise their voting rights through electronic voting machines for the first time during the civic body polls.