The second and final phase of the elections to the 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh, which ended today, remained by and large peaceful.
In phase II, 13 seats went to polls and the voter turnover so far was reported at 45 per cent. For the first time, more than 1,000 voters exercised negative votes (vote to no candidate) in the state.
The first phase on April 23 too witnessed less than 50 per cent voter turnout for 16 seats.
Congress had put up its candidate Rajkumar Patel from the Vidisha Lok Sabha seat against Sushma Swaraj of the Bharatiya Janata Party. But Patel’s nomination was rejected as he could not submit his papers on time.
Union human resource development minister Arjun Singh’s daughter Veena Singh contested as an Independent candidate from the Sidhi parliamentary constituency after being denied a Congress ticket, while Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh fielded a man widely seen as a dummy candidate from Rajgarh against his younger brother Laxman Singh who contested on a BJP ticket.
Congress stalwarts Jyotiraditya Scindia, who contested from the Guna constituency, Kamal Nath (Chhindwara) and state party president Suresh Pachouri failed to cast their spell, either through their public meetings or speeches. Interestingly at the last minutes, Pachouri announced he was dropping out of the election.