Ruling BJP manages to save its face
Bhopal: The Congress has won the Mungaoli and Kolaras assembly by-elections, which were being widely perceived as the semi-finals for the assembly elections due this year-end. In Mungaoli, Congress candidate Brijendra Yadav defeated BJP’s Baisaheb Yadav by a margin of 2,123 votes.
Yadav received 70,808 votes while Baisaheb garnered 68,685 votes. In Kolaras, Congress party’s Mahendra Singh Yadav vanquished BJP’s Devendra Jain by a margin of 8,086 votes. The Congress polled 82,518 votes and the BJP got 74,432 votes.
The prestige of both chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Congress MP Jyotiradiyta Scindia was at stake in these by-elections. Besides Chouhan, about 20 ministers had campaigned intensively in the twin constituencies. Chouhan had travelled to Kolaras and Mungaoli more than 10 times. But even after all this, the BJP failed to wrest the two assembly seats from the Congress.
However, the BJP has two face-saving devices – one, that the Congress had won both the constituencies in 2013 Vidhan Sabha elections and that the BJP has dragged down Congress’ victory margin. In 2013, the Congress had won Mungaoli by a margin of 22,000 votes. The BSP was also in the fray then and had got 15,000 votes.
Reacting to the poll outcome, Scindia said it is a victory of Congress workers and a defeat of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. He said that the poll results marked the beginning of the end of BJP rule in the state.
CM quotes Vajpayee; concedes defeat
The chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan quoted a line from former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s poem while accepting defeat. Chouhan said, “Na jeet mein na haar mein, kinchit nahin bhaybheet main, kartavya path par jo mila, yah bhee sahee, wah bhee sahee’. Chouhan said that even when BJP wave was blowing across the state, the BJP had lost both these seats with a big margin. “We were only trying to narrow down that margin and attract the BSP votes,” he said.
Pressure on Cong to project Scindia as CM
The twin victories have considerably increased the chances of Scindia being declared the Congress party’s chief ministerial candidate in the assembly polls. The Scindia camp-followers will now mount more pressure on the party high command to project Scindia. A section of Congressmen wants that this time, the party should enter the electoral fray with a chief ministerial candidate.
