Cong charges into BJP turf in MP

Congress lapped up 12 out of 29 seats in the BJP dominated Madhya Pradesh, and could have added one more to the tally had HRD Minister Arjun Singh's daughter not jumped into the fray as an independent.     

This is the first gain for the Congress since portions of the state was carved out to form Chhattisgarh in 2000. The party's tally had in 2004 fallen to four, including Chhindwara represented by Kamal Nath and Guna represented by Jyotiraditya Scindia. Besides, it held Jhabua and Gwalior. All the rest of the seats had then gone to BJP.     

This time the party fielded relatively young candidates against the BJP's old-timers, which the Congress believes helped it increase its tally to 12 seven by wresting Mandsaur, Ujjain, Dewas-Shajapur and Khandwa constituencies from the BJP.       BJP also lost Mandla, Hoshangabad, Dhar, Shahdol and Rajgarh.     

The tally of Congress could have reached 13, had Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh's daughter not contested the polls from Sidhi constituency as an independent. Her presence in the fray ensured the defeat of the Congress candidate Indrajit Patel from Sidhi as she cornered over 67,000 votes while Govind Mishra (BJP) won the seat with a margin of 45,000 votes. Mishra got 2,70914 votes while Patel was polled 22,5174 votes.