Bhopal, December 8
The BJP will once again rule Madhya Pradesh for the next five years. Belying all talk of Uma Bharati delivering a fatal blow to the party and anti-incumbency sentiment adversely impacting its electoral fortunes, the BJP romped home with 137 seats in the state Assembly well above the half-way mark of 116. The Congress had to remain content with only 72 seats.
It is for the first time in the history of the state that a non-Congress government has won a second consecutive term.
Though the Congress has improved its tally vis-a-vis the last time when it had won only 38 seats and the BJP has slipped down quite a bit from its 2003 tally of 173, it is little consolation for the Congress, whose state President Suresh Pachauri has offered to put in his papers accepting “moral responsibility” for his party’s defeat.
Uma Bharati - the perceived spoil-sport for the ruling party - herself has lost though her party the Bharatiya Janashakti managed to win seven seats. The BSP, which was touted as the potential “third force” in the state, could also register victory on only seven seats. The BJP has performed well in all regions of the state - Malwa, Gwalior, Vindhya Pradesh, Mahakaushal and Bhopal. In Bhopal, it has won six out of seven seats.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan has scored an impressive victory in the Budhni constituency in Sehore district.
