Madhya Pradesh: BJP pays small price for graft charges, pips Congress

Bhopal: The Congress ended up paying for corruption charges elsewhere in the country while the BJP got away with just a rap on the knuckles in Madhya Pradesh. Eleven ministers were humbled at the hustings but that didn’t prevent the party from romping home with an impressive margin. The final tally in a House of 230 is 165-58 for the BJP and the Congress while the others share seven seats. The party position after the 2008 elections was 143-73- 14 in that order. The BJP itself was wary of buying the exit poll projections due to ground reports of resentment against many ministers and legislators. A PIL filed in the high court cited cases of corruption against 11 serving and former ministers and 50 officials of the Civil Services being probed by the Lokayukta for the past eight years. The Lokayukta was not provided papers to pursue cases against the ministers. The accused include cabinet ministers Babulal Gaur, Kailash Vijayvargiya and Jayant Mallayya.[caption id=“attachment_1277389” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. PTI [/caption] Finally the verdict from the voter went against public relation and culture minister Laxmikant Sharma (Sironj), medical education minister Anoop Mishra (Bhitarwar), tourism minister Brajendra Pratap Singh (Pawai), labour minister Jagannath Singh (Chitrangi), revenue minister Karan Singh (Icchawar), minister of state for tribal welfare Harishankar Khatik (Jatara), agriculture minister Ramkrishna Kusumaria (Rajnagar), general administration minister Kanhaiyalal Agrawal (Bamori), animal husbandry minister Ajay Vishnoi (Patan), Jaisingh Maravi (Jaitpur) and another minister Dashrath Singh Lodhi (Jabera). Laxmikant Sharma who enjoyed considerable proximity to the chief minister, lost to Congress candidate Govardhan Lal by 1,584 votes. Anoop Mishra, who is the nephew of the former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, had shifted to the Bhitarwar seat, lost the poll to Lakhan Singh Yadav of Congress by 6,548 votes. However, this is where the anti-incumbency stopped for the BJP. Modi’s tirade against the corruption in the Union government bought the Congress’ unpopularity to foreground. While 36 of the BJP incumbent legislators lost the elections the Congress was worse off with 42 being rejected by the voters. Babulal Gaur on the other hand set a record by winning the Govindpura seat in Bhopal for the 10th time. Equally surprising was the 70,000 margin of his victory. There is no mention of a similar record in the country. The BJP increased its tally by over 11 percent over the past election. It had secured 94.93(37.64 percent) votes in 2008 to secure 143 seats while this time around it got 164.1 lakh votes (48.7 percent) to win 165 seats. The BJP‘s gains were across the state except Vindhya, Nimar and Gwalior II. Its best crop came from the 11 districts of Malwa which has 50 seats the BJP gained 17 seats while the Congress lost as many from the previous tally. In the central zone of Bhopal which has 25 seats spread in five districts the party wrested one seat from the Congress. In the adjoining three districts of Narmada division that covers 11 seats the BJP added two seats to its kitty with Congress losing one. In the four districts of Nimar the Congress gained three seats to its previous tally of two while the BJP came down from 14 to 11. Out of the 26 seats in the five districts of Bundelkhand the BJP won 20 seats with a gain of six over the earlier tally. These gains are being attributed to former chief minister Uma Bharti’s return to the party fold. The eight districts of Mahakoshal gave BJP 24 out 38 seats for a gain of one. In Vindhya region’s 7 districts out the 30 seats at stake the Congress 12 against its past tally of two. The BJP on the other hand lost eight out of its 24 seats to finish with 16. The others lost two of the four seats they held. In the Chambal region the BJP gained six seats over its earlier tally of eight while the Congress lost four. In Gwalior the Congress won eight seats for a gain of three. It held five seats in the outgoing House. The BJP had fielded two women MPs, both from the Gwalior royal family. Both Yashodhara Raje and Maya Singh won at Shivpuri and Gwalior east seats respectively. The talking point has been Narendra Modi’s contribution to the party’s victory. Modi addressed 13 rallies in the state covering 72 seats and the BJP won 52 out of them. The party retained 49 of them and wrested three more.