Old Congress warhorse Kamal Nath, the Union parliamentary affairs minister, is one of the only two from the party to win in this Lok Sabha poll from Madhya Pradesh. He got 559,755 votes at Chhindwara to the 443,218 for his Bharatiya Janata Party rival, Chandrabhan Kuber Singh, a local MLA.
The other man to retain his seat in the rout was Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Union power minister, from the family’s Guna seat, defeating the BJP’s Jaibhan Singh Pawaiya by 120,792 votes.
All others, big or not so big names, either lost or are trailing. Ajay Singh, son of the late Arjun Singh, lost his Satna seat to Ganesh Singh of the BJP, though by a thin margin of 9,000 votes. Arun Yadav, son of the late Congress heavyweight Subhash Yadav, lost his Khandwa seat to Nandkumar Chouhan of the BJP by a huge margin of 265,000 votes.
Arun is also state president of the Congress and was a central minister. Laxman Singh, younger brother of senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh, lost his Vidisha Seat to the BJP’s Sushma Swaraj by 410,698 votes. Meenakshi Natrajan, known as a confidant of Rahul Gandhi, lost her Mandsaur seat by 303,649 votes to a little known Sudhir Gupta of the BJP.
Nath, incidentally, first elected from Chhindwara in 1980, put up no posters of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi or Manmohan Singh. Also avoiding all criticism of the (BJP-run) state government, he ran on his own record.
The other man to retain his seat in the rout was Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Union power minister, from the family’s Guna seat, defeating the BJP’s Jaibhan Singh Pawaiya by 120,792 votes.
All others, big or not so big names, either lost or are trailing. Ajay Singh, son of the late Arjun Singh, lost his Satna seat to Ganesh Singh of the BJP, though by a thin margin of 9,000 votes. Arun Yadav, son of the late Congress heavyweight Subhash Yadav, lost his Khandwa seat to Nandkumar Chouhan of the BJP by a huge margin of 265,000 votes.
Arun is also state president of the Congress and was a central minister. Laxman Singh, younger brother of senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh, lost his Vidisha Seat to the BJP’s Sushma Swaraj by 410,698 votes. Meenakshi Natrajan, known as a confidant of Rahul Gandhi, lost her Mandsaur seat by 303,649 votes to a little known Sudhir Gupta of the BJP.
Nath, incidentally, first elected from Chhindwara in 1980, put up no posters of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi or Manmohan Singh. Also avoiding all criticism of the (BJP-run) state government, he ran on his own record.
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