MP polls: Small vote swing crucial on 21 seats

A minor swing of votes will be crucial to decide the fate of candidates in 21 out of 230 assembly constituencies in Madhya Pradesh where elections are scheduled to be held on November 25.

This is because the victory margin in the 2008 assembly election was low in these seats. Even a small swing in votes could change the fate of a candidate on these seats.

Last time, the most interesting case was in Dhar constituency, where Neena Verma, wife of senior BJP leader and former Member of Parliament Vikram Verma, was declared elected by a margin of just one vote.

However, the result was challenged in court by Bal Mukund Gautam, who finished second. He waged a long legal battle and was declared a winner. There are a number of big names who scraped through with quite small victory margins.

Madhya Pradesh minister Jayant Malaiya defeated Chandrabhan of the Congress in Damoh seat by only 130 votes.

Sajjan Singh Verma (Congress), who is now a Lok Sabha member, got elected from the Sonkutch constituency defeating Phoolchand Verma of the Bharatiya Janata Party by only 191 votes.

The Congress won the Junnardeo seat from Chhindwara district by a small margin when its nominee, Tejil Saryan, defeated Nathan Singh Kavreti of the BJP by just 194 votes.

Former state Chief Minister Kailash Joshi's son Deepak Joshi was elected from Haatpipaliya, where he defeated his Congress opponent Rajendra Singh Baghel by 220 votes. In Kolaras of Shivpuri district, BJP's Devendra Jain defeated Ram Singh by 239 votes.

Ashwin Joshi of the Congress won from Indore-3 seat after defeating Gopi Krishna Nema of the BJP By 402 votes. Shivmangal Singh Tomar of the BJP won by 256 votes from Dimni in Morena district against Ravinder Singh Tomar of the Bahujan Samaj Party.

Former state Assembly Speaker Sriniwas Tiwari lost to Rajkumar Urmaliya (BSP) from Sirmour by 309 votes. In Panna, Shrikant Dubey of Congress defeated former state minister Kusum Mehdele (BJP) by only 42 votes.

Dr Vijay Laxmi Sadho, who is now a Rajya Sabha member, won from Maheshwar seat over Rajkumar Mev by 673 votes. Besides, in Jatara, Harishankar Khati of BJP defeated Dinesh Ahirwar of the Bharatiya Janashakti by 847 votes.