100% success rate for Sonia in MP

Campaigning by Congress President Sonia Gandhi has bode well for the party in Madhya Pradesh, as her public meetings and rallies in support of four candidates ringed success for them in the Lok Sabha results.

The UPA Chairperson addressed election meetings at Ujjain, Ratlam, Dhar and Mandla and Congress nominees in all the four constituencies emerged victorious. Those who won include Union Minister of State for Agriculture Kantilal Bhuria (Ratlam), Prem Chand Guddu (Ujjain), Gajendra Singh Rajukhedi (Dhar) and Basori Masram (Mandla).

In contrast, her son and Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi addressed election meetings in eight parliamentary constituencies but the party won in only four of them.     

Rahul addressed election meetings in Hoshangabad, Khandwa, Dewas, Mandsaur, Khajuraho, Khargone, Balaghat and Bhind. Of these eight constituencies, the Congress won in Hoshangabad, Mandsaur, Dewas and Ujjain but it lost in Khajuraho, Khargone, Balaghat and Bhind.

The party's most spectacular success came in the Mandsaur constituency where its nominee 35-year-old Meenakshi Natarajan defeated 80-year-old Dr Laxmi Narayan Pandey, who had been winning elections from there since 1971.

In Hoshangabad, Congress MLA Uday Pratap Singh defeated Rampal Singh of the BJP. His victory is considered creditable as senior Congress leader Arjun Singh had lost from there in 1996. In Dewas, Sajjan Singh Verma of the Congress humbled veteran BJP leader Thawarchand Gehlot and in Ujjain, Prem Chand Guddu defeated Satyanarayan Jatia.