Live updates
- Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia loses in Guna
- Congress registers his first victory in 2019 LS elections in Madhya Pradesh after Chief Minister Kamal Nath's son Nakul Kamal Nath emerges victorious from Chhindwara seat
- BJP's Pragya Singh Thakur is leading by more than 1,20,000 votes
- Trends reveal that BJP's Pragya Singh Thakur is leading against Congress candidate Digvijay Singh in Bhopal
- Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia trailing from Guna, Madhya Pradesh
- Congress candidates Kamal Nath and Nakul Nath are leading in both the assembly by-poll as well as the Lok Sabha election respectively for the Chhindwara constituency in Madhya Pradesh
- BJP's Pragya Singh Thakur leading from Bhopal, BJP candidate Anurag Thakur leading from Hamirpur(HP)
- Congress's Digvijaya Singh and BJP's Pragya Singh Thakur are contesting from the Lok Sabha seat in Bhopal
Bhopal: Counting of votes for the 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh got underway at 292 centers situated in 51 district headquarters across the state on Thursday with early trends showed congress stalwarts Jyotiraditya Scindia and former chief minister Digvijay Singh trailed against their BJP rivals.
All eyes were on the Bhopal Lok Sabha seat which was bound to witness a keen contest between Congress veteran Digvijay Singh and Malegaon blast case accused Pragya Singh Thakur. Pragya Singh Thakur won the Bhopal Lok Sabha seat by 364822 votes.
Around 1,800 CCTV cameras were installed at the counting centers where internet and wi-fi services were not available, state Chief Electoral Officer V L Kantha Rao told reporters.
"The counting of votes began at 8 am. Given the number of candidates and counting rounds, the first result may start coming in by 10 am," he said.
After the counting is over, five randomly selected Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips from each Assembly segment of that particular Lok Sabha seat would be matched with the electronic voting machines (EVMs), he said.
The highest 29 rounds of counting will be held in Indore and the lowest 14 in Katni, he said.
Around 9,000 security personnel, including 17 companies of the central forces, have been deployed for the security of strong rooms in which the EVMs have been kept, Rao said.
Polling for the 29 seats in the central state was held in four phases on April 29 (six seats), May 6 (seven seats), May 12 (eight seats) and May 19 (eight seats).
The Guna and Chhindwara seats won by Congress leaders Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kamal Nath, respectively, in 2014 were in limelight this time.
The Congress this time nominated Nakul Nath from Chhindwara after his father and sitting MP Kamal Nath became the state's chief minister.
Other prominent faces in this election were BJP state president Rakesh Singh (from Jabalpur), party leader Prahlad Patel (Damoh), Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar (Morena), ex-Union ministers and Congress nominees Kantilal Bhuria (Ratlam-Jhabua), Arun Yadav (Khandwa), and former leader of opposition Ajay Singh (Sidhi).
Barring Chhindwara that returned the sole Congress candidate Nakul Nath, the BJP swept all including the Guna seat. The Congress had won two seats of Chhindwara and Guna in 2014. In the next year's by-election Congress leader Kantilal Bhuria wrested back Ratlam-Jhabua seat to take the tally to three.
It will be the first time that Lok Sabha will be without a member from the Scindia family from erstwhile Gwalior state. Even more humiliating for the Scindias is the defeat of a scion at the hands of former humble worker of the Congress and old fan of Jyotiraditya Scindia, Krishnapal Yadav.
Scindia was projected a popular choice as a youthful Chief ministerial candidate in the run-up to the assembly elections last year. He failed to vindicate that tag. Kantilal Bhuria the former union minister who had won a by-election in 2015 raise the Congress tally to 3 out 29 seems to have lost hold on the constituency. This would be Bhuria's second defeat of the career.
Kamal Nath who retained the PCC chief's post even after becoming the chief minister is now being accused of focusing on personal interest. Kamal Nath now makes a debut in the assembly. But the BJP is already baying for his blood. The state BJP chief who just retained his Jabalpur Lok Sabha seat has already demanded Kamal Nath's resignation on moral grounds.
There are murmurs within the Congress too on why Kamal Nath was allowed to retain two posts. But given the frictions in the Congress, it would be hard to believe the results would be any different particularly after the Modi undercurrent swept all states.
The complete failure of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi to make an impact in the state may have surprised even the BJP supporters. Rahul Gandhi had made seven trips to the state and Priyanka one over the past two months.
Congress had many chinks in its armor. It was said the Congress had won the assembly elections in spite of itself because factionalism was rampant when it squared up against a considerably weakened BJP -- thanks to Shivraj Singh's inept third stint.
Now the even the ruling party members privately concede the Congress markedly benefited from the BJP's incumbency. Many faces of the BJP had put off the voter. The strategy to replace most of the old hands, including some sitting MPs, seems to have worked wonders for the BJP. But many pollsters say the candidates of the party did not matter this time around. It was just brand Modi that counted.
