congress-vote-share-drops-2-in-mp-nota-rises

The vote share of the Congress in the recent Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh decreased by more than two percent, while the BJP's share increased marginally by over one percent, a top official said on Wednesday.

 

In the results announced on Tuesday, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won all 29 seats in the state, including the Congress stronghold of Chhindwara.

 

A total of 533,705 voters opted for the NOTA (none of the above) option, with Indore alone accounting for 218,674 of those votes, Madhya Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Anupam Rajan said at a press conference.

 

Among the 369 candidates contesting the 29 seats, there were 343 men, 25 women, and one transgender candidate in Damoh.

 

Rajan reported that the Indian National Congress (INC) secured 34.50 percent of the vote in the 2019 elections. This year, its vote share dropped to 32.44 percent, a decrease of 2.06 percent. The BJP's vote share rose to 59.28 percent from 58 percent in 2019.

 

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) also saw an increase in its vote share, rising to 3.28 percent from 2.38 percent in the previous general elections, he added.

 

The vote share for NOTA also increased from 0.92 percent to 1.40 percent.

 

"Of the 533,705 NOTA votes received across 29 constituencies in Madhya Pradesh, 218,674 were cast in the Indore Lok Sabha seat alone," Rajan said. Of these, 218,355 votes were cast via EVMs, and 319 were postal ballots.

 

Indore's BJP candidate Shankar Lalwani, who won by the largest margin of 1.175 million votes, received 78.54 percent of the total votes cast.

 

In Vidisha, former state chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan won by a margin of 821,000 votes, securing 76.70 percent of the total votes.

 

BJP's Lata Wankhede came third in terms of vote share, receiving 68.49 percent of the total votes in her constituency.

 

BJP candidates Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna) and state unit president V.D. Sharma (Khajuraho) received 67.21 percent and 67.75 percent of the total votes, respectively.

 

The lowest victory margin across all 29 seats was recorded in Morena, where BJP candidate Shivmangal Singh Tomar won by 52,530 votes.

 

Rajan affirmed that EVMs are foolproof and there is no possibility of tampering due to stringent procedural checks.

 

The model code of conduct will end on Thursday, he added.