In a morale-boosting victory, the BJP on Tuesday snatched the Maihar Assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh from the Congress in a bypoll, months after suffering a defeat at the hands of the main Opposition
In a morale-boosting victory, the BJP on Tuesday snatched the Maihar Assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh from the Congress in a bypoll, months after suffering a defeat at the hands of the main Opposition party in the Ratlam-Jhabua Lok Sabha constituency.
BJP candidate Narayan Tripathi defeated Manish Patel of the Congress by a margin of 28,281 votes in the seat, where polling took place on February 13 and the result was announced Tuesday. Maihar, known for the temple of Goddess Sharda situated on Trikuta hill, falls under Satna Lok Sabha constituency.
Mr Tripathi secured 82,658 votes, while Mr Patel polled 54,377, an election official said.
Mr Tripathi, after winning the seat in 2013 Assembly polls as a Congress candidate, later quit the party and joined the BJP. His resignation from the seat, traditionally a Congress bastion, necessitated the byelection.
The victory came as a shot in the arm for the ruling party which lost to the Congress the Jhabua Lok Sabha seat in a bypoll in November last year. The loss had come shortly after the saffron outfit’s drubbing in the Bihar Assembly elections.
A jubilant chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who has completed a decade in office, hailed the Maihar outcome and termed as a victory for ideology of the BJP, which received support from a cross-section of voters.
“This victory is unimaginable as Maihar had been traditionally a Congress seat. However, in this bypoll the BJP received support from the poor, tribals, women and minorities.”
