MP Bypolls: Congress Manages To Retain Traditional Bastions, But BJP Makes Significant Inroads

Although the Congress managed to retain Madhya Pradesh’s high-stake Mungaoli and Kolaras Assembly constituencies in the bypolls ahead of the November 2018 elections, the results weren’t good news for the party.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) managed to make inroads into the two constituencies, part of Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia’s Guna Lok Sabha constituency. Scindia, widely seen as the Congress’ chief ministerial candidate for the November 2018 Madhya Pradesh elections, led the party’s campaign, making it a direct face-off between him and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

In Mungaoli, Congress candidate Brijendra Singh got 70,808 votes and defeated BJP’s Baisahab Yadav by a margin of 2,123 votes. Compared to its lead of 20,765 votes in the 2013 elections, the Congress’ margin came down drastically. Compared to the 2014 Lok Sabha election results, the Congress lost around 13 per cent of its vote share while the BJP managed to gain 13 per cent.

In the Kolaras seat, Congress candidate Mahendra Singh Yadav got around 82,515 votes to defeat BJP’s Devendra Singh (74,432 votes) votes. Here too, the Congress won the seat by a small margin of 8,083 votes. It had won the seat with by a margin of 24,953 votes in 2013. Compared to 2014 Lok Sabha election results, the Congress’ vote share came down by 8 per cent while the BJP’s increased by 10 per cent.