Bhopal: Ever since Akshay Bam, Congress candidate for the Indore Lok Sabha seat, withdrew his nomination at the last minute and jumped ship to the BJP, speculation has been rife about the reasons, including alleged “pressure” due to imminent fresh charges in a 17-year-old case. However, Bam told ThePrint his abrupt change of allegiance stemmed primarily from his disillusionment with the lack of organisational support from the Congress, alongside ‘supportive’ words from BJP minister Kailash Vijavargiya.
“Sanghe shakti kalyuge (unity is strength in dark times),” Bam said, quoting a Sanskrit proverb often used by BJP leaders. “In this Kalyug if you have to fight things out, you need to have a strong support of an organisation, which I felt was lacking with the Congress.”
Nevertheless, the timing of Bam’s departure and the surrounding events have raised numerous questions. On 23 April, Bam filed his nomination as the Indore candidate, but the very next day, an MP court accepted a plea to add the charge of attempt to murder (Section 307) to an old land dispute case against him. Then, on April 29, the final day for withdrawing nominations, Bam took his hat out of the ring.
Within minutes of withdrawing his nominations, accompanied by BJP MLA and Kailash Vijayvargiya’s aide Ramesh Mendola, Bam joined the BJP.
Bam’s departure has also exposed fault lines within the Congress. While some claim Bam acted under duress, others say he should never have been given a ticket at all.
During a rally in Shivpuri, MP state Congress president Jitu Patwari claimed that Bam was not only “threatened” with the new charge being added to the case but also “tortured in different ways for the whole night” preceding his withdrawal.
Meanwhile, other Congress leaders are pointing the finger at Patwari for choosing Bam as a candidate despite objections raised at election committee meetings, instead of contesting himself. Now, the Congress doesn’t have a candidate at all from Indore, with Patwari urging people to pick the NOTA option.
“While Congress gave everything to Patwari, from making him an MLA, minister and now PCC chief, he failed to stand for the party when it needed him the most. Instead of contesting himself from Indore, Patwari nominated a man, who has never stepped inside the Congress building, how can such people be expected to be loyal to party’s ideology?” said Congress leader Aminul Suri.
ThePrint tried to contact Patwari for a comment over the phone, but did not receive a response.
According to Bam, lack of support from the Congress organisation prompted his withdrawal. He claimed in the month since he was given a ticket, several of his outreach programs were cancelled at last minute, while his requests to invite senior leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Sachin Pilot and Akhilesh Yadav fell on deaf ears.
“It is on-record that I gave a letter in writing to AICC to invite these leaders for campaign in my constituency, but Sachin Pilot came to campaign in Dhar and ended up spending two hours at Indore airport waiting for his flight but he was not intimated about my request,” Bam alleged.
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‘Kailashji had heard I was upset’
From a prominent business family in Indore, Akshay Bam has been involved with the Congress for at least a decade. In the 2023 assembly elections, he was denied a ticket from the Indore-4 seat, but got the Lok Sabha ticket with Patwari’s backing.
Even now, the assembly ticket denial still seems to be a sore spot with him. “The Congress had assured me that they will give a ticket to me from Indore-4. I worked hard for two years in the constituency on a seat which the Congress has not won for 40 years, but at the last minute I was denied the ticket and someone else was given a chance,” he said.
Bam, however, said he did not hold Jitu Patwari responsible for the lack of organisation support for him.
“Jitu Patwari has to look after the entire state and cannot focus just on Indore,” he said. “But if I was given a ticket, the organisation should have backed me.”
In his Shivpuri rally, Patwari drew comparisons between Bam and Nilesh Kumbhani, the Congress Lok Sabha candidate from Surat whose nomination form was rejected this week due to “discrepancies”. The Congress has called Kumbhani a “traitor” and alleged that the nomination cancellation was part of a nefarious plan.
But Bam claimed that such a comparison could not be drawn because he did not just “vanish”. He said that the last straw for him was when he reached Indore’s sabzi mandi for an outreach programme on 29 April, only to find hardly anyone there.
“The same five people who have been working with me since day one had come for my programme and there was no one else,” he said. “There are 27,000 booths in the Lok Sabha constituency, and one cannot fight on all booths oneself. Looking at the fact that the organisation was not behind me, it made me really disheartened and I decided to withdraw.”
On being accompanied by BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya’s aide Ramesh Mendola during the withdrawal process, Bam insisted that it was just a matter of moral support.
“In political circles here, it had become a common knowledge that things were not going well for me,” he said. “That day, I got a call from Kailash Vijayvargiyaji who said that he had heard I was upset. At that point I decided to join the BJP.”
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Question of the case
Bam’s ongoing legal travails date to a 2007 land dispute case in which his father is also named.
While they were initially charged under IPC sections 294 (use of obscene words, abusive), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) for allegedly attacking one Yunus Patel, things took a turn earlier this month.
In a 5 April application to an MP court, Patel alleged that he was shot at by an aide of the Bam family in an attempt to kill him. On 24 April, the court accepted the plea and told the police to add attempt to murder (section 307) to the charges.
However, Bam told ThePrint that this is yet to happen. “Section 307 has not been added, the court simply observed that 307 is applicable and the hearing is ongoing and is scheduled for 10 May,” he said.
Bam added that the case was not a factor in his decision to join the BJP. “I am a person with a clean image and there are no major cases against me. I was not worried about the ongoing case of 307,” he said.
Bam also dismissed allegations of pressure related to the ongoing Hope Mill Redevelopment project Indore, involving the Poddar group, where his father, Kanti Bam, is a stakeholder. “There was no financial pressure,” he said. “My father is a simple man away from politics and had been working with the Poddar group for many years, his work has no bearing on my politics and had nothing to do with my decision to withdraw my nomination.”
After Bam withdrew his nominations, Patwari faced a volley of questions during a press conference in Indore, where some local reporters demanded his resignation over the issue. Sidestepping this, Patwari urged people to opt for ‘NOTA’ and clarified that the party wouldn’t endorse any other candidate.
Bam also pointed out that as his nomination had been accepted, Congress’ “dummy candidate” Moti Patel’s B-form had been cancelled.
“But Moti Patel ji should have also filed as an independent candidate, I do not know why he did not do it,” said Bam. He added that he was pleased with his decision and that he believed Prime Minister Narendra Modi would lead the country to prosperity.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)