Bhopal, Even as a Modi wave becomes visible in large parts of the country, trends available after the fourth hour of counting indicate that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) continues surging ahead in 28 and the Congress in merely one of Madhya Pradesh’s 29 parliamentary constituencies.
The saffron candidates notched up leads exceeding a lakh votes each in the state’s commercial capital Indore, Khajuraho, Jabalpur, Hoshangabad, Betul, Khandwa, Khargone, Mandsour, Rajgarh, Ratlam, Sagar, Shahdol, Tikamgarh, Ujjain, Damoh and Dewas.
In the state capital, two-time Lok Sabha member, presently Rajya Sabha Member and erstwhile chief minister Digvijaya Singh is approximately 56,000 votes behind his BJP rival Pragya Singh Thakur whereas in Guna Congress General Secretary and former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia is trailing by about 50,000 to Mr KP Yadav (BJP). Ex-MP Meenakshi Natrajan (Cong) is roughly 1.25 lakh behind defending MP Sudheer Gupta (BJP) in Mandsour.
In Morena, two-time MP and Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Mines and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Narendra Singh Tomar is ahead of Mr Ramniwas Rawat (Cong) by approximately 15,000. Sitting MP Nand Kumar Singh Chouhan (BJP) is leading by about 1.25 lakh in Khandwa over Congress’ erstwhile state president Arun Yadav. In Damoh, former central minister Prahlad Singh Patel (BJP) is ahead of Mr Pratap Singh by roughly a lakh votes. In Chhindwara, Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s son Nakul (Cong) is leading by roughly 34,000 over Mr Nathan Shah (BJP).
The BJP’s Shankar Lalwani is leading by a record margin of approximately 2.5 lakh in Indore over Mr Pankaj Sanghvi (Cong), the saffron camp’s Ganesh Singh is ahead in Satna, Riti Pathak in Sidhi and VD Sharma in Khajuraho. In Jabalpur, BJP state President Rakesh Singh is approximately 1.25 lakh votes richer than Rajya Sabha Member Vivek K Tankha (Cong). Other BJP candidates doing well are Mr Dhal Singh Bisen (Balaghat), Mr Mahendra Solanki (Dewas) and Mr Rodmal Nagar (Rajgarh).
Chief Minister Kamal Nath (Cong) is about 10,000 ahead of Mr Vivek Sahu (BJP) in Chhindwara Assembly constituency.