BJP fortifies position in Bundelkhand
Apart from retaining all the three Lok
Sabha constituencies in the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh,
the Bharatiya Janata Party has also consolidated its
votebank this time.
By establishing a lead in 23 of the 24 assembly segments in the
region, the BJP has given a severe jolt to the ruling Congress party.
Apart from the Congress and BJP nominees, other contenders, including
former minister and legislator Akhand Pratap Singh, who had left the
Congress to join the Bahujan Samaj Party, and state Samajwadi
Party president Gauri Singh Yadav, even lost their deposits.
The Khajuraho seat, which falls in this region, has been retained by
Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha president Uma Bharati who defeated
her nearest Congress rival Shriram Kushwah by more than 130,000
votes. The BJP had polled 43.39 per cent votes and the Congress 30.58
per cent this time, as against 45.27 and 25.12 per cent respectively
in 1996.
However, the by-election to the Chandla assembly seat in this
constituency favoured the SP candidate. Its representative,
Vijay Bahadur Singh, defeated his nearest BJP rival Rajkishore Tiwari
by more than 2,800 votes and became the first candidate from his party
to enter the Vidhan Sabha. The by-election
was necessitated by the resignation of a Congress legislator.
By winning three times in a row, Dr Ramkrishna Kusumaria (BJP) has
recorded a hat-trick from Damoh in this region. He trounced Naresh Jain (Congress) by an impressive margin of more than
130,000 votes. The BJP has secured 44.39 per cent votes here,
compared to the 25.82 per cent polled by Congress.
BSP candidate Ramdeen Ahirwar forfeited his deposit.
Ashok Veer Vikram Singh (SP), polled 11.85 per cent,
cutting into a considerable number of Congress votes.
Sagar, the third constituency in the region, returned
Virendra Kumar Khatik of the BJP, and has broken the trend set in the
constituency since 1962 of not returning the same party candidate
twice. In 1996, Khatik had defeated former parliamentarian Anand
Ahirwar (Congress) by more than 148,000 votes. This time he
defeated Nand Lal Choudhary of the Congress by nearly the same
margin.
The BJP and the Congress have secured 57.28 per cent and 31.86
per cent votes respectively in the region. The BSP nominee and
retired bureaucrat, Ramdin Ahirwar, polled only 7.90 per cent
of the votes.
UNI
Elections '98
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