M A I N   N E W S

Congress leads in 12 seats in Jharkhand
Yashwant Sinha losing

Ranchi, May 13
The Congress-led alliance is leading in 12 out of the 14 Lok Sabha elections after trends upto 16 rounds were made available in Jharkhand. The most prominent leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party to trail is External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, who is behind CPI's Bhubaneswar Prasad Mehta by 14,800 votes in Hazaribagh after the third round.

Another Union Minister, Karia Munda, is trailing Congress candidate Sushila Kerketa by 20,000 votes from Khunti after the completion of fourth round.

Minister of State for Social Justice Nagmani is at the fourth spot in Chatra, where RJD's Dhirendra Agarwal has maintained a lead over Independent candidate Ram Lal Oraon, a former self-styled MCC zonal commander by 6,419 votes at the end of the fourth round.

RJD's Manoj Kumar has got a slender lead of 600 votes in Palamu over BJP candidate Brajmohan Ram.

Former Union Minister Rita Verma of the BJP is also lagging behind Congress' Chandra Sekhar Dubey by 61,342 votes in Dhanbad after the seventh round while new comer Rameswar Oraon is leading by 12,000 votes over BJP's Dukha Bhagat in Lohardaga.
Former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi has almost won the Koderma seat by establishing an unassailable 1.4 lakh lead over JMM's Champa Verma after 16 rounds with only two more rounds remaining. — PTI

BJP bags 15 seats in MP

Bhopal, May 13
Amid its dismal show elsewhere in the country, a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party today continued its winning spree in Madhya Pradesh, bagging 14 of the 15 Lok Sabha seats, results of which were declared so far, while the Congress opened its account by retaining the tribal Jhabua constituency.

As the NDA suffered setback in states, including its bastion Gujarat, the results in this state brought cheers to the BJP leaders' face as they pinned their hopes to improve substantially their performance of 21 of 29 seats in the past general elections.

The BJP appeared replicating its stupendous performance of the last year's Assembly elections, when it handed over a crushing defeat to the Congress gaining a three-fourth majority in the 230-member House.

The dispirited Congress, which failed to recover from the heavy drubbing at the hands of saffron party, opened its account by retaining Jhabua, from where its nominee Kantilal Bhuriya romped home victorious for a fourth occasion in a row.

Congress, which appears failing to maintain its last election's tally of eight seats this time, was leading in high-profile constituencies of Guna and Chhindwara, from where Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kamalnath are seeking re-election, besides Gwalior.

The BJP won Rewa, Seoni, Rajgarh, Khandwa, Ujjain, Dhar, Khargone, Shajapur, Indore, Mandla, Satna, Betul, Bhind and Balaghat. — PTI