The BJP’s victory in Madhya Pradesh was marred by the defeat of seven ministers — Ramkrishna Kusmariya, Brijendra Pratap Singh, Harishchandra Khartik, Anup Mishra, Laxmikant Sharma, Ajay Vishnoi and Karan Singh Verma.
Mr. Mishra, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s nephew, changed his seat from East Gwalior to Bhitarwar this time. While Mr. Mishra lost to L.S. Yadav of the Congress, Rajya Sabha MP Maya Singh won East Gwalior. Mr. Mishra, Mr. Sharma and Mr. Vishnoi are being probed by the Lokayukt for corruption.
Another minister Jayant Malaiya, who is also being probed by the Lokayukt, is leading from Damoh. The Congress had initially named anti-corruption activist Santosh Bharti from the seat. The party later gave the ticket to Lodhi caste leader Chandrabhan Singh.
The biggest upset of this election was the defeat of Congress stalwart and its former State chief Suresh Pachouri. He lost to Surendra Patwa, the son of former Chief Minister Sunderlal Patwa, by more than 20,000 votes in the Bhojpur suburb of Bhopal.
Around half of the Congress’ sitting MLAs have lost. These include firebrand legislator Kalpana Parulekar in Mahidpur, Gond leader Bisahulal Singh in Anuppur and MP Premchand Guddu’s son Ajit in Alot.
Mr. Singh had delivered a victory in the Anuppur municipal polls in September. Ajit was the backup candidate of the party, after the initial candidate Kamal Parmar’s nomination was rejected. He was defeated by BJP MP Thawarchand Gehlot’s son Jitendra.
Ms. Parulekar suffered a crushing blow with only 7058 votes. She came in third, with rebel Congressman Dinesh Jain coming second. She had been suspended from the Assembly for snatching papers from late speaker Ishwardas Rohani.
Shivraj Chouhan won the seats of Budhni and Vidisha with margins of around 85,000 and 17,000 votes respectively. Budhni and Vidisha collectively registered 3615 votes for “None of the Above” (NOTA). Of the roughly 3.35 crore votes cast, 6.2 lakh were NOTA votes which were registered in significant numbers in the seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes.
Mr. Chouhan had faced opposition from the supporters of disgraced former minister Raghavji in Vidisha, who was the seat’s sitting MLA. Urban Development minister Babulal Gaur won by a margin of 71,000 votes in Govindpura and was relected to the Assembly for the tenth time.
Opposition leader Ajay Singh was re-elected from Churhat by a margin of almost 19,000 votes against his BJP rival Shardendu Tiwari, the grandson of veteran socialist Chandra Pratap Tiwari. Digvijaya Singh’s son Jaivardhan, who debuted in these polls, won with a massive margin of 59,000 votes in Raghogarh.
Correction
This article has been edited to incorporate the following correction:
The report, “Giants bite the dust in M.P.” (Dec. 9, 2013) erroneously said that Rajya Sabha MP Maya Singh won Bhitarwar. It should have been East Gwalior.
