BJP snatches Maihar Assembly seat from Congress

In a morale-boosting victory, BJP today snatched the Maihar Assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh from Congress in a bypoll, months after suffering a defeat at the hands of the main Opposition party in the Ratlam-Jhabua Lok Sabha constituency.
BJP candidate Narayan Tripathi defeated Manish Patel of Congress by a margin of 28,281 votes in the seat, where polling took place on February 13 and the result was announced today. Maihar, known for the temple of Goddess Sharda situated on Trikuta hill, falls under Satna Lok Sabha constituency.
Tripathi secured 82,658 votes, while Patel polled 54,377, an election official said.
Tripathi, after winning the seat in 2013 Assembly polls as a Congress candidate, later quit the party and joined BJP. His resignation from the seat, traditionally a Congress bastion, necessitated the by-election.

The victory came as a shot in the arm for the ruling party which lost to Congress the Jhabua Lok Sabha seat in a by-poll in November last year. The loss had come shortly after the saffron outfit's drubbing in the Bihar Assembly elections.
A jubilant Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who has completed a decade in office, hailed the Maihar outcome and termed it as a victory for ideology of BJP, which received support from a cross-section of voters.

"This victory is unimaginable as Maihar had been traditionally a Congress seat. However, in this bypoll the BJP received support from the poor, tribals, women and minorities.

"It was an important bypoll for BJP. Though BJP got a two-thirds majority in the 2013 Assembly elections, it lost this seat to Congress," he said.
"To express my gratitude to the people of Maihar, I will visit the town on the occasion of Sant Ravidas Jayanti on February 22 and organise a 'mahakumbh' (grand assembly of people)," the BJP stalwart said.
The victory comes just ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Sherpur in neighbouring Sehore district on February 18, where farmers will felicitate him for launching a new crop insurance scheme. Chouhan was in Sherpur to review preparations for Modi's visit.

For Congress, the by-poll in Maihar was a prestigious battle as it had won it in 2013 despite BJP sweeping the Assembly elections that year. BJP, keen on wresting the seat from Congress, fielded Tripathi.
Congress gave ticket to Patel, who came to the party from BSP, with an aim to consolidate backward class voters in the Brahmin-dominated seat, a strategy which failed to click.
Congress has won the seat eight times since 1957, while Janata Party, an Independent, Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party and BJP tasted victory once each.