Pragya Singh Thakur wins first-ever LS election; beats Digvijay Singh

BJP candidate Pragya Singh Thakur on Friday won her first ever Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh's Bhopal, by a margin of 3,64,822 lakh votes.

Thakur won a total of 8,66,482 votes in the constituency.

In 2014, Congress leader Alok Sanjar had won by a margin of 3,70,696 votes.

Speaking to media persons, she said: "I have won the trust of the people. The country will prosper under the leadership of Narendra Modi."

She had contested against Congress candidate Digvijay Singh and Madho Singh Ahirwar of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

Accepting his defeat, Digvijay Singh had earlier in the day said he accepts the verdict of people in the Lok Sabha elections.

At the national level, BJP, whose campaign was spearheaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on muscular nationalism and a strident anti-Congress plank has won 281 seats and is leading on 22 seats, as per the latest details updated on the website of the Election Commission on 3:20 am. Thakur faced a lot of flak during her canvassing for calling Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse a 'true patriot'. The BJP condemned the remark, following which she had apologised.

On another occasion, Thakur, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case said that former Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) Hemant Karkare lost his life because she had cursed him.

Karkare was killed along with two other senior police officers while fighting terrorists during the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai in November 2008.

Thakur is among the seven accused facing trial in Malegaon blast case. Six people were killed and a dozen others were injured after a bomb placed on a motorcycle exploded in Maharashtra's Malegaon on September 29, 2008.

She was arrested in 2008 but was given a clean chit by the National Investigation Agency in 2015 for lack of evidence. However, the trial court refused to let her off, saying it was difficult to accept since her motorcycle was used in the blast.

Thakur has been cleared of charges under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act and was granted bail by the Bombay High Court in 2017 but remains an accused under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

She joined the BJP in April.