Three outfits — Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)— played spoilsport and damaged the prospects of Congress in Madhya Pradesh, in the just concluded Lok Sabha polls, where it could have done much better.
The Mayawati-led BSP alone dented Congress' prospects in five Lok Sabha seats out of 29 in the state, as the votes secured by its candidates in these seats were more than the margin of defeat of the Congress candidates.
While in three other seats where votes got by the trio — BSP, SP and RJD — were more than the victory margin of the BJP candidates against the Congress nominees.
The Congress garnered 12 seats this time in comparison to its tally of four in the 2004 polls.
The seats where the BSP alone had damaged the party prospects are Morena, Bhind, Khajuraho, Sidhi and Gwalior while the BSP, SP and RJD helped to defeat the Congress candidates in Balaghat, Indore and Tikamgarh.
The BSP candidate in Morena, Balbir Singh Dandotiya secured 1,42,073 votes while BSP's Dayaram Rahul in Bhind got 60,803 votes which are more than the margin of defeat of Congress candidates Ramniwas Rawat and Bhagirath Prasad respectively.
Similarly, BSP candidate in Khajuraho, Sewa Lal Patel received 77,107 votes and Ajab Singh Kushwah (BSP) from Gwalior got 76,481 votes which are almost double than of the margin of defeat of the Congress candidates Raja Pateria and Ashok Singh in these seats respectively.
BSP candidate Ashok Kumar Shah in Sidhi Lok Sabha seat secured 53,760 votes which is more than the margin of defeat of Congress candidate Indrajeet Kumar there.
Besides, the total votes polled in favour of BSP, SP and RJD candidates in Indore seat are 13,079 where Congress candidate Satyanarayan Patel was defeated by the veteran BJP leader, Sumitra Mahajan by a margin of only 11,480 votes.
While in Balaghat the trio got more than one lakh votes while the victory margin of BJP candidate K D Deshmukh there is 40,819 votes against Congress nominee Vishweshwar Bhagat.
In Tikamgarh, BSP and SP candidate also secured more than 1.16 lakh votes while the defeat margin of Congress candidate Vrindavan Ahirwar is only 41,862 in the constituency.
