Bhopal: Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday showered sops for Chhindwara, considered pocket borough of Congress veteran Kamal Nath, in Madhya Pradesh ahead of the ensuing assembly elections and Lok Sabha polls in the state.
Mr Chouhan laid foundation for a grand Rs 314 crore Hanuman temple corridor at Samli under Sausar assembly constituency, currently represented by Mr Nath, in Chhindwara district and later in the day held ‘Rozgar Mela’ and ‘Laldi Bahna’ convention in district headquarters of Chhindwara where he announced to establish a college and an auditorium in the city.
The chief minister also declared to create a new district carved out of Chhindwara district.
He later staged a 4km-long road show in the city.
“I had an amazing feeling when I laid the foundation for the Hanuman temple corridor in Samli. It is holy site”, he said.
The Hanuman temple corridor is proposed to be built in an area of 30 acre at the Samli in six phases in the line of Mahakal shrine corridor in Ujjain in the state.
Significantly, Mr Nath has been projecting him as an ardent devotee of Lord Hanuman in the publicity materials of Congress to counter any ploy by BJP to play Hindutva card in the year-end assembly elections.
Chhindwara Lok Sabha constituency as well as the seven assembly seats falling under it have currently been held by Congress.
In fact, former chief minister Mr Nath had won the Chhindwara parliamentary seat nine times before leaving it to his son Nakul in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Nath Junior won the seat as a Congress candidate in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls defying the Narendra Modi wave then.
Nath Senior had successfully contested from Sausar assembly seat in 2018 assembly elections to enter the Madhya Pradesh assembly for the first time.
BJP has launched an all-out effort to conquer the final frontier in Madhya Pradesh, Chhindwara, in the ensuing Lok Sabha and assembly elections.
In fact, the party has targeted Chhindwara as one among the 160 Lok Sabha seats in the country, lost by the party in the last parliamentary elections, in the 2024 LS polls.
Union home minister Amit Shah has recently visited Chhindwara to assess the ground level political situation there.
