Rajesh Sharma, Vijay Mandge. Datia<\/span>16 minutes ago<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n July 27, 2026, around 1 PM. Congress State President Jeetu Patwari reached the house of former MLA Rajendra Bharti in Datia. Awadhesh Nayak was also with him. The three leaders had a closed-door meeting for about an hour. This is not the first meeting between Patwari and Bharti. During the elections, Patwari was visiting him every second or third day.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Why are Patwari’s meetings with Bharti happening continuously, can Congress suffer losses because of Bharti? What strategy is Congress moving forward with? How easy or difficult is Congress’s path in this by-election compared to 2023, and what are the ground challenges it faces?<\/p>\n To understand this, Dainik Bhaskar spoke to political analysts and Congress leaders playing a crucial role in the elections. Read the report<\/strong><\/em> Understand in 3 points: What’s happening in Congress?<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1. Assembly divided into parts, leaders given different responsibilities<\/strong> Congress has divided the Datia assembly into different parts and given leaders the responsibility of campaigning. State President Jitu Patwari is holding rallies in rural areas. Along with seeking support for Congress, he is also cornering the BJP government. In other areas, many leaders including Digvijaya Singh, Jaivardhan Singh, Sachin Yadav and PC Sharma are engaged in campaigning. Candidate Ghanshyam Singh is also contacting voters by visiting village to village.<\/p>\n 2. Bharti Away from Campaign, Nayak, a Ticket Contender, Active in the Field<\/strong> Rajendra Bharti is away from the campaign due to health reasons. He recently underwent major surgery and is also reported to have vision problems. He is mostly at home. On the other hand, Awadhesh Nayak, who was among the main contenders for the ticket, is actively campaigning for the Congress candidate.<\/p>\n 3. Leaders Assigned Responsibilities Based on Caste Equations<\/strong> Like the BJP, Congress has also assigned responsibilities to its leaders among different social groups. Siddharth Kushwah has been made the election in-charge. P.P. Sharma, Hemant Katare, Rakesh Chaturvedi, and Praveen Pathak are active among Brahmin voters. Dr. Govind Singh and Jaivardhan Singh are campaigning among Kshatriya voters.<\/p>\n Phool Singh Baraiya, Mahendra Bauddh, Mewaram Jatav, and Suresh Raje have been given responsibility for the SC-ST category. Sachin Yadav, Ashok Singh, Dinesh Gurjar, and Lakhan Singh are active among OBC voters, while Arif Masood is campaigning among Muslim voters.<\/p>\n Candidate Ghanshyam Singh engaged in campaigning – He tells people that without Narottam, the election is one-sided<\/span><\/p>\n Now understand: What are the challenges before Congress?<\/span><\/p>\n 1. Keeping Rajendra Bharti on board<\/strong><\/p>\n State Congress President Jitu Patwari is meeting Rajendra Bharti every second or third day. It is being said that electoral strategy is being discussed between the two. These meetings are also being linked to the ongoing political speculations regarding Bharti.<\/p>\n Due to health reasons, he is away from campaigning. In recent days, there was talk of him joining BJP. It is also claimed that some of his supporters, upset over not getting a ticket, might go in favor of the BJP.<\/p>\n Bharti claims – received offers from BJP many times, I refused<\/strong><\/p>\n In a conversation with Bhaskar, Bharti claimed that in 2024, Narottam Mishra had contacted her through a Union Minister and his OSD. She said, “In April 2024, the OSD offered me to join BJP on behalf of Narottam Mishra. The offer also included making me the chairman of the corporation-board and compensating for the losses incurred, but I rejected the proposal.<\/p>\n Bharti said – Awadhesh Nayak had the first right to the ticket<\/strong><\/p>\n Bharti said that it would have been better if Awadhesh Nayak had got the ticket instead of Ghanshyam Singh. He informed, “After the seat became vacant, I met Rahul Gandhi, but there was no discussion about the ticket. The state president, Digvijay Singh and other leaders had asked me to field my wife or son in the election.<\/p>\n I had suggested Awadhesh Nayak from the general category and three-four names from the OBC category. In my opinion, Nayak had the first right to the ticket. The party has chosen Ghanshyam Singh, but if Nayak had contested, he would have been a stronger candidate.”<\/p>\n Jeetu Patwari and Awadhesh Nayak arrived to meet Rajendra Bharti<\/span><\/p>\n 2. Addressing the Displeasure of Awadhesh Nayak’s Supporters<\/strong><\/p>\n According to party sources, the future politics of Congress is also considered a reason behind making Ghanshyam Singh a candidate from Datia. Singh has contested the last three elections from Sevdha.<\/p>\n He won once and lost twice. Sources claim that he could have been a strong contender from Sevdha in 2028 as well, while former minister Dr. Govind Singh wants to field his son from there.<\/p>\n In such a situation, Ghanshyam’s arrival in Datia is also being linked to the equations of 2028. This has led to discussions of discontent among some supporters of Awadhesh Nayak. However, Nayak himself is engaged in Ghanshyam Singh’s campaign.<\/p>\n He told Bhaskar that he has no regrets about not getting a ticket and claimed that, like in 2023, this time too the public is fighting the election on behalf of the Congress.<\/p>\n 3. Capitalizing on the displeasure of Narottam’s supporters<\/strong><\/p>\n According to senior journalist Ravi Thakur, BJP has tried to maintain its hold among Brahmin voters by fielding Ashutosh Tiwari instead of Narottam Mishra. However, he believes that Mishra’s ticket being cut has caused resentment among a section of this community, and Congress wants to take advantage of this.<\/p>\n Party leaders are trying to reach out to disgruntled voters, but according to Thakur, they have not yet achieved the expected success. Awadhesh Nayak says, Congress is fighting the election on its own strength. If Narottam supporters, who are upset with BJP, come to our side, it will be a bonus, but we are not relying on them.<\/p>\n 4. Preventing vote fragmentation from a third candidate<\/strong><\/p>\n Preventing vote fragmentation is also a big challenge for Congress. According to Ravi Thakur, Azad Samaj Party candidate Damodar Yadav secured about 29,000 votes from Sevdha in the last election and is now contesting from Datia. Thakur believes that Yadav can make inroads among Jatav and Ahirwar voters.<\/p>\n About 16,000 voters from these two communities are said to be in Datia. In such a situation, if a portion of their votes goes in favor of Damodar, Congress could suffer losses. According to Thakur, despite BSP losing its deposit in the last election, the equations could be different this time, as a section of the youth from these communities is influenced by Chandrashekhar of Bhim Army.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rajesh Sharma, Vijay Mandge. Datia16 minutes ago July 27, 2026, around 1 PM. Congress State President Jeetu Patwari reached the house of former MLA Rajendra Bharti in Datia. Awadhesh Nayak was also with him. The three leaders had a closed-door meeting for about an hour. This is not the first meeting between Patwari and Bharti….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9],"tags":[21826,21829,20263,21824,21828,21827,20265,21825],"class_list":["post-29255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mp","category-states","tag-awadhesh-nayak","tag-congress-internal-conflict","tag-congress-party","tag-datia-bypoll","tag-datia-election","tag-jeetu-patwari","tag-mp-politics","tag-rajendra-bharti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/images.bhaskarassets.com\/web2images\/1884\/2026\/07\/28\/comp-4-5_1785207466.gif\")
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