Lok Sabha Election 2024: Once Congress was dominant, now Khandwa seat has become a stronghold of BJP

Lok Sabha Election 2024: BJP's Gyaneshwar Patil will face Congress's Narendra Patel in the Khandwa LS elections. Narendra Patel is the nephew of former MP and MLA Tarachand Patel. He comes from the Gurjar community. This community has more than one lakh voters in Khandwa Lok Sabha. 

BJP has again given ticket to Gyaneshwar Patil of Maratha Kunbi community. Gyaneshwar Patil has won through the by-election in 2021. There are 1.5 lakh voters in Khandwa seat of Maratha Kunbi community.

Narendra Patel is from Arun Yadav camp

Narendra Patel is considered to be from the Arun Yadav camp. Khandwa district is also known as East Nimar. In fact, this city situated between the valleys of Narmada and Tapti rivers was once an important place for the Jain community. The remains found here show that there used to be Jain temples here once. 

This district, which came into existence as East Nimar in 1956, was divided into two districts as Khandwa and Burhanpur in 2003. Actually, the old name of Khandwa was Khandav Van. Which gradually became Khaandwa in colloquial speech and later became popular as Khandwa.

Khandwa is also known for its natural beauty and tourism. Omkareshwar Jyotirlinga, one of the 12 Jyotirlingas, is in this district. 

Besides, Ghantaghar, Dada Dhuniwale Darbar, Harsud, Mundi, Siddhanath Temple and Veerkhaala Rook are other popular tourist places here. 

However, the 8 seats which come under the Khandwa Lok Sabha constituency are divided in Dewas, Burhanpur, Khargone and Khandwa districts. 

Congress was dominant till the 70s

Congress was dominant here till the 70s but the party’s decline started from the 80s. Now this seat is a stronghold of BJP. In the total of 19 Lok Sabha elections held so far, Congress has won from Khandwa seat 9 times, while BJP has won 8 times. The Janata Party also won from here twice. In the first five general elections (1952-71), Congress won from Khandwa seat all five times. 

Nandkumar kept winning continuously since 1996 except 2009

In the 1996 elections, Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Nandkumar Singh Chauhan won the Khandwa Lok Sabha seat and brought the party back to power. After this, Chauhan kept winning elections continuously (1998, 1999 and 2004) and continued representing the people of this area in the Lok Sabha till 2009. In the 2009 elections, he had to face defeat at the hands of Congress candidate Arun Yadav. 

However, Nandkumar Singh Chauhan maintained his dominance by winning the 2014 and 2019 elections. After the death of Chauhan, BJP candidate Gyaneshwar Patil won the by-election in 2021 and became MP from here. Once again BJP has expressed confidence in Patil and gave him a Lok Sabha ticket.