BJP registered a crucial victory in the bitterly contested Madhya Pradesh bypolls winning by 19 seats and decimating the Congress that managed to secure just 9 seats.
According to the Election Commission of India, BJP secured a vote share of 49.5 per cent where Congress got 40.5 per cent votes.
Polling was held on November 3 on 28 seats. By-elections were necessitated on 28 seats following the resignation of 25 MLAs and the death of three legislators earlier. In March this year, 22 Congress MLAs resigned from the state Assembly paving the way for BJP's Shivraj Singh Chouhan to take over as Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister for the fourth time.
Counting of votes, which began at 8 am finally ended at around 3 am on Wednesday.
BJP candidate and Minister Imarti Devi lost Dabra constituency to Congress' Suresh Raje.
Minister of Water Resource Department and BJP candidate Tulsi Silawat defeated Congress' Premchand Guddu in Sanwer constituency by a record margin of 53,264 votes.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that this is the victory of the people of Madhya Pradesh.
"This is the victory of development! This is victory of faith! This is the victory of social justice! This is the victory of democracy! This is the victory of the people of Madhya Pradesh! The people gave their blessings to BJP and expressed confidence in us. I pledge that there will be no let anything impact the welfare of the state,"
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that BJP emerged as the unparalleled choice of the people in the state.
"Powered by the progressive agenda of the Government under Shivraj Singh Chouhanand the hardwork of BJP Madhya Pradesh, our Party has emerged as the unparalleled choice of the people. I thank the people of MP for blessing BJP in the by-polls held across the state. Their affection is invaluable," he tweeted.
Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh alleged that "selective tampering" of EVMs was the reason behind his party's defeat.
"EVMs are not tamper-proof, and selective tampering is done. There are seats that we would have not lost in any circumstance but we did by thousands of votes. We will hold a meeting tomorrow and analyse the results," he said.
Conceding defeat, former Chief Minister Kamal Nath said he accepted the people's mandate: "We accept the mandate. We made every effort to reach out to voters. I also thank all voters who participated in the by-elections," former Chief Minister Kamal Nath tweeted in Hindi.
( With inputs from ANI )
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