The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has taken a comfortable lead in the Madhya Pradesh byelections as former Congressman Jyotiraditya Scindia powering the party to a commanding position.
The ruling party is either leading in, or has won, 19 out of the 28 Assembly seats for which byelections were held, while the Congress has won, or is ahead in, just eight. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which was holding on to the Morena constituency earlier in the day, has lost it to Congress’ Rakesh Mavai.
Since Scindia’s exit from the Congress to join BJP, a move that took down the Kamal Nath government, he has been the face of the saffron party in the state.
The elections, which are being conducted as a result of his departure as well as the deaths of sitting legislators in three constituencies, are in BJP’s favour at the moment.
The BJP has 107 MLAs in the 230-member Assembly, and needs at least nine seats to stay in power. The Congress, on the other hand, needed to win all 28 seats if it had to return to power — or at least 21 in order to give itself a chance to bargain with the BSP, SP and Independent MLAs.
Two ministers in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government -- Aidal Singh Kansana (Sumaoli) and Girraj Dandotia (Dimani) -- have lost against their Congress rivals in the elections.
OPS Bhadoria of the Mehgaon constituency, too, was among the ministers who were trailing but he managed to secure a comfortable lead with 54,033 votes.
In other constituencies, the BJP is leading in 19 seats by margins of different ranges.
Candidates of the ruling party are ahead of their rivals in Gwalior, Gwalior East, Bhander, Pohari, Bamori, Ashok Nagar, Mugaoli, Surkhi, Bada Malhera, Anuppur, Sanchi, Agar, Hatpiplya, Mandhata, Nepanagar, Badnawar, Saver, Suwasara and Jaura seats.
In Indore and Bhopal, BJP workers celebrated as leaders of their party took the lead for the road to the Legislative Assembly.
A voter turnout of 70.72 per cent was recorded on November 3, when 355 candidates, including 12 ministers, contested for the bypolls.
