Madhya Pradesh: BJP rode on Vajpayee to wrest Maihar seat from Congress

The party put up life-sized hoardings of Vajpayee, while PM Modi was confined to small displays

Madhya Pradesh BJP had cashed in on its ailing leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee's image by putting up his big hoardings to wrest from Congress the crucial Maihar assembly seat in the bypoll elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was confined to small displays.

Vajpayee's larger than life size hoardings across the town said "those who are duty-bound or are worthy of taking up responsibility never fear a victory or a defeat" (kya haar main, kya jeet main, kinchit nahin baybheet main, kartavya path par jo bhi mile, yah bhi sahi vah bhi sahi).

The BJP election managers gave pre-eminence to Vajpayee in this caste-ridden constituency having more than 35,000 Brahmin voters given that it had been a forte of this Hindu upper caste since last 18 years.

Brahmin candidates Congress' Vrandavan Badgeya, BJP's Motilal Tiwari and Narayan Tripathi (who defected to BJP from Congress) have won this seat in MP's Satna district in elections since 1998.

So was the case this time around too. BJP candidate Tripathi again won the Maihar by-poll by defeating his nearest Congress rival Manish Patel by a margin of 28,281 votes. The results were declared after counting yesterday.

With this, Tripathi has created a record of sorts by winning this seat thrice from three different political parties -- SP, Congress and BJP.

This constituency had been a bastion of Congress which had won it eight times in the past. Janata Party, an Independent, Janata Dal and Samajwadi Party (SP) had won it once each in the past.

The February 13 by-poll was necessitated in Maihar as the sitting Congress MLA Tripathi resigned from his party and his post and joined the BJP.

Of the 2,27,803 voters, 72% had exercised their franchise in the by-elections.