Bhopal: In the civic body elections in the scheduled areas of the state, the results of which were announced on Wednesday, the Congress has snatched seven bodies from the Bharatiya Janta Party. The total tally, including, bye-elections is BJP (25) Congress (13) and Independents (3).
The poll results are bound to add a few inches to the stature of Congress MP Kamal Nath. The Congress tally has increased from two to four in his constituency. On the hand, the BJP has won Dabra and Kailaras –bodies in the zone of influence of Jyotiraditya Scindia.
Scindia and Nath are frontrunners in the race for party’s chief ministerial face in the assembly elections due next year.
In many places the BJP has maintained its representation, but in many, the party lost its seats to Congress. In Chhindwara district election was fought at six places. In the earlier election of 2012, the BJP had won in four places and Congress on two seats. But in this election, the BJP lost three seats and the Congress has won four seats while one has gone to an independent candidate.
In Balaghat, the BJP lost to Congress, while in Mandla, the Congress wrested two seats from independent candidates, with the BJP maintaining its three seats.
After all effort of Congress state president Arun Yadav, the Nepanagar seat was lost to BJP. Similarly in Dindori one is won by Congress and one by BJP, even as earlier on both BJP was ruling.
In Ratlam, Congress snatched the seat from independent candidate. In Chanera, Ranapur, Alirajpur and Nepanagar, the Congress lost the elections with margin of 50 to 200 votes. If the vote margin had decreased, the Congress might have won 17 seats. In the election, the Congress has won around 30 per cent seats and the BJP has won around 60 per cent of the seats. In four places, by-elections were contested. At Khargone Congress had won the elections, but in three places Gwalior, Morena and in Satna BJP candidates have won the elections.
Speaker’s bro-in-law wins as independent candidate
Independent candidate from Pandurna Nagar Palika Parishad, Praveen Paliwal is brother-in-law of state assembly speaker Seeta Shran Sharma. He had contested the election as a rebel candidate. He won the election by getting 11,632 votes and the second highest scorer was Congress candidate Pramod Bithoba who got 8,276 votes.
LoP upbeat
Congress leader of opposition Ajay Singh sees the result as a change in rule, as desired by the voters. He claimed CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan had campaigned in 31 places and the Congress had won in 13 places and the BJP in 25.
“If we analyse the right-to-recall polling result, we can find that in both places the Congress candidates have won the election. It shows how the BJP has misused power and disgraced the democratic practices in the state.”
