Indore: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has trounced Congress in Sanwer, considered to be the most prestigious contest among the 28 seats where by-polls were held. The BJP candidate, Tulsi Silawat won by a record ......... votes against Premchand Guddu, the Congress candidate. Silawat received ……. votes while his main opponent Guddu got…….. votes.
Silawat has won by the highest lead in the history of Sanwer. The contest was one-sided as Silawat took lead over Guddu from the first round itself and the lead continued to increase as the day progressed. Silawat has become the MLA from Sanwer constituency for the fourth time including his win in two by-polls. Though Silawat took lead from the first round, the Congress activists were not disheartened and took many objections during the counting due to which the counting was stopped and was also much slower when compared to the counting in other seats.
Tulsi Silawat had taken a lead of 2,413 votes in the first count as he got 5426 votes while Guddu got 3013 votes. The lead didn’t decrease even for once and crossed over 20,000 in 11 round, over 30,000 in sixteenth round and so on.
As BJP's lead increased, many Congress leaders and activists had left the counting venue and only those involved in monitoring were left. Those left were led by Premchand Guddu’s daughter Reena Baurasi and son Ajit Baurasi.
Silawat breaks Sonkar’s record
With the massive win in bypoll, Tulsi Silawat has also broken the record BJP’s Prakash Sonkar had set in 2003. Sonkar had won by over 20,000 votes in the election against Congress’ Rajendra Malviya.
Tulsi Silawat also has the record in his name of getting defeated by the lowest number of votes. He had lost by 134 votes in 1993. He had contested the election as Congress candidate.
Counting stopped multiple times, Congress alleges mismanagement, anomalies
Counting of votes were stopped multiple times due to the objections by Congress on various issues like no tag on EVM switches, mismatching of tags, and others.
Counting was stopped for an hour after 14th round as Premchand Guddu’s daughter Rashmi Baurasi had taken objection alleging broken seals of EVM machines.
“All officials, including the police and the district collectors, are working as agents inside. They are all working under the BJP's pressure. Several EVM seals were found broken. I saw six of them myself," she alleged.
Meanwhile, Guddu’s son Ajit alleged that tags were mismatched and many of them did not have signatures. “The pink-paper seals and green seals did not match. When we asked the officials about this, they said that these things happen and avoided our questions. The police are also not checking for mobile phones properly,” he said adding “We will knock the court’s door over the same.”
Congress leaders had taken eight objections in eight rounds of counting which slowed the process and delayed it by an hour.
Tit bits
1. Premchand Guddu didn’t come to the counting venue till evening and his supporters said he could not come due to his illness. He reached the venue at 4 pm when his son had taken objection over a broken tag of the EVMs.
2. Guddu’s daughter Reena and Rashmi Baurasi were motivating the activists during the counting and were leading the objections over various issues.
3. Tulsi Silawat reached the counting venue from the beginning and he remained there till the end. BJP’s district president Rajesh Sonkar and Umesh Sharma accompanied Silawat throughout the day.
4. After counting of 12 rounds, Sonkar had taken Silawat on his shoulders to congratulate him winning the elections.
5. Congress activists who reached outside counting venue didn’t stay for long and left for their places after first two hours of counting.
6. BJP had installed posters of Silawat’s win out the counting venue on Monday night, hours before the counting started.
7. While BJP activists were celebrating the win, some of them tore some of the posters of Silawat outside BJP office.
“It was the fight between Sadhu and Shaitan. Sanwer voters have taken the right decision. It is the win of Shivraj Singh’s Chouhan, Jyotiraditya Scindia, VD Sharma, and all my activists in Sanwer. It is the win of Sanwer’s voters. I will always remain in their service.”
- Tulsi Silawat
“I want to thank all the voters of Sanwer and every activist of BJP for their tireless efforts to get the historical win. We will lead the development of Sanwer and will take it to the new heights.”
- Rajesh Sonkar, District President, BJP
“It is the win of Sanwer’s people who have chosen development over fake promises. People have rejected Congress from across the state and chosen Silawat and Shivraj for true development.”
- Umesh Sharma, BJP’s state spokesperson
“The victory is because of Modi wave and Chouhan’s good governance. The party workers put in hard efforts to cash in on this, resultantly we emerged victorious.”
- Kailash Vijyavargiya, BJP national general secretary
Round wise results (cumulative)
Rounds- Tulsi Silawat- Premchand Guddu- Lead
1- 5426- 3013- 2413
2- 11307- 5639- 5668
3- 15810- 8784- 7026
4- 20151- 11913- 8238
5- 24729- 15175- 9554
6- 29827- 18426- 11401
7- 34589- 21873- 12,716
8- 39689- 25715- 13,974
9- 45001- 28477- 16,524
10- 50071- 31730- 18,341
11- 55200- 34746- 20454
12- 60001- 37547- 22454
13- 64468- 40354- 24114
14- 69099- 43802- 25297
15- 73173- 45802- 27, 371
16- 78503- 48070- 30433
17- 83473- 50788- 32685
18- 88763- 53841- 34922
19- 94158- 55958- 38200
20- 99123- 58242- 40881
21- 102575- 60051- 42524
22- 106146- 61873- 44273
