Bhopal:
The Congress on Sunday was once again able to wrest the Chitrakoot Assembly seat by a significant margin of around 14,000 votes from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The bye-election, necessitated after the demise of Congress MLA Prem Singh, who had won the seat three times, died in May this year. Singh had won the Chitrakoot Assembly seat in 1998, 2003 and 2013.
The assembly seat turned to be a cakewalk for the Congress candidate Congress candidate Nilanshu Chaturvedi. He polled 66810 votes against his opponent BJP candidate Shankar Dayal Tripathi , who got 52677 votes.
From the very first round the Congress had been leading the counts. In the initial first few rounds of counting the Congress candidate was winning with a very marginal numbers but as the sun rose higher the number gap between the Hand and Lotus grew bigger.
Congress party workers in Chitrakoot were seen on roads with colours and drums. Huge Congress flags were seen floating in the air and ‘Congress jindabad’ slogans were heard.
Voting for the Chitrakoot Assembly bypoll had taken place on November 9. The constituency had recorded almost 65 per cent voter turnout.
BJP MP Nand Kumar Chauhan talking to media said, "We fought in Chitrakoot to win but did not succeed."
The Chitrakoot bypoll results holds a significance for both BJP and Congress as the state will vote for Assembly elections in November 2018.
