The Congress on Sunday retained the Chitrakoot assembly constituency, with the party candidate winning by over 14,000 votes in the bye-election.
Congress candidate Nilanshid Chaturvedi established a firm, early lead over his nearest rival, BJP’s Shankar Dayal Tripathi when counting began today morning. Nilanshu Chaturvedi got 68,810 votes while Shankar Dayal Tripathi got 52,677 votes in the crucial bye-election.
The bypoll, which was necessitated following the death of Congress MLA Prem Singh, saw around 65 per cent voting on November 9. In the last 20 years, the Congress had only lost the seat just once in 2008, when BJP’s Surendra Singh Gaharwar defeated Singh by a slender margin of 722.
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The ruling party tried to find solace in the fact that Chitrakoot has been a traditional stronghold of the Congress. However, BJP leaders and chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan campaigned extensively in the bye-election.
Earlier, before the results were declared, BJP MP from Khandwa, Nand Kumar, told news agency ANI: “The counting till now shows that the seat will go to Congress, but what happens here does not denote the mood of the state.”