BJP on course for record-breaking victory in MP

The BJP appeared set to hand out a comprehensive drubbing to the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, wining one and leading in 25 others out of 29 parliamentary seats in the state.

Rakesh Singh of the BJP was declared the winner from Jabalpur Lok Sabha constituency. He defeated former additional solicitor general Vivek Tankha who had contested on a Congress ticket.

The Congress is set to retain Guna and Chindwara seats with Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kamal Nath leading by comfortable margins. The party is also leading in Satna.

Though the saffron party fell short of its Mission 29, yet it improved on its 2004 performance when the party had won 24 seats. The party had won 16 seats in the 2009 parliamentary elections.

The BJP's seven-time Indore MP Sumitra Mahajan and Vidisha sitting MP Sushma Swaraj are all set to win by over 4 lakh votes.

Chief minister Shivraj Singh, who is considered close to senior leader LK Advani, called up Narendra Modi to congratulate him for his resounding victory.

Congress state president Arun Yadav and Khandwa candidate accepted his party's defeat. Yadav also accepted his defeat from Khandwa. "We accept the mandate. We could not propagate our programmes and policies," he said.

Incidentally, Yadav was given the party's charge in the state after its debacle in the Assembly elections of 2013.

Besides Yadav, all other sitting Congress MPs including Premchand Guddu (Ujjain), Sajjan Singh Verma (Shajapur-Dewas), Kantilal Bhuria (Ratlam) were facing defeat.

Meenakshi Natarajan (Congress), one of the think tanks of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's core group, is also on way out. She is one of the candidates besides Satyanarain Patel (Indore) who was selected as party candidate through US-style 'primaries'.

As the trends started to trickle in, BJP leaders and workers started to celebrate while the Congress headquarters wore a deserted look.

The results were in tune with post-poll surveys which had predicted the party to get the better of rival Congress, like in the last assembly polls when the state voted for the BJP under Shivraj Singh Chouhan.