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New Delhi: Internal fissures within the Bharatiya Janata Party came to the fore after hundreds of supporters of a senior party leader in Madhya Pradesh Narottam Mishra clashed with police and blocked a national highway for 12 hours in protest after he was denied a ticket for an upcoming bypoll election.

According to local authorities, enraged BJP workers pelted stones at police, overturned vehicles, and smashed the windows of commercial trucks and commuter cars. Demonstrators also damaged four police vehicles and attempted to set another on fire, said police. The Datia administration said that around eight police personnel and officials were injured in the violent protest which started on the evening of July 10 and went on till dawn on July 11.

Mishra, an influential former minister who helmed the state’s home portfolio during the previous BJP government, had lost his traditional bastion of Datia in the 2023 assembly elections by a narrow margin of just over 7,700 votes. The bypoll was necessitated after the sitting Congress MLA, Rajendra Bharti, was disqualified upon being convicted in a criminal case in April. However, in a surprise move, the BJP declared that its candidate for the bypoll would be Ashutosh Tiwari, former president of the MP Housing Board and former divisional organisation secretary of the MP BJP. This did not go down well with Mishra’s supporters, who expected him to be fielded from the constituency he won thrice in the past.

Not only did his supporters stage a disruptive protest bringing traffic to a standstill, the district president of Datia along with his supporters and several other office-bearers resigned from their posts in support of Mishra. They even threatened to........

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