Bhopal, Dec 04: Madhya Pradesh was today headed for a Saffron sweep with the BJP winning 25 seats and leading in 127 in the elections to the 230-member state assembly.
  • Results
    •  The Congress, which had 124 seats in the last assembly, has so far won seven seats and was ahead in 31.

    'Others' won two seats and were ahead in 27 constituencies.

    BJP's chief ministerial candidate Uma Bharati won Bada Malhera constituency.

    Prominent congress winners were senior ministers Hazari Lal Raghuvanshi and Sajjan Singh Verma who bagged Seoni-Malwa and Sonkatch seats respectively.

    Phool Singh Baraiyya, who rebelled against BSP and its leader Mayawati to form Samata Samaj Party, was defeated from his home turf of Bhander by a BJP nominee.

    NCP opened its account in the state with party nominee Hamid Kazi winning from Burhanpur defeating his nearest BJP rival Kailash Parikh by 4213 votes. Manjushri Thakur, sitting member of the Congress finished third.

    Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, who had won by a huge margin last time, was ahead over his nearest BJP rival Shivraj Singh Chauhan by 6789 votes.

    Prominent among the Congress leaders trailing were speaker Srinivas Tiwari from Mangawan in Rewa district where the Election Commission had transferred the entire polling staff out of the district in the wake of complaints.

    BJP candidate Girish Gautam, contesting for the third time against Tiwari, was leading by over 18,000 votes at the end of the seventh round.

    Prominent losers included Hiralal Silawat from Pandhana, tribal welfare minister Urmila Singh from Ghansaur (ST) and sports minister Tejilal Saryam from Jamai.
    Bureau Report