The recent Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh saw a decisive victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), capturing all 29 seats from the state—something outstanding, given that it was the bastion of Chhindwara, and this seat used to belong to the Congress.
A whopping 311 out of 369 candidates reportedly lost their security deposits, which comes to be a huge over 84 percent of the contenders. The deposits of the candidates were between Rs 12,500 and Rs 25,000 each.
This victory of the BJP has turned out to be a record for the party as no party has made such an achievement in the last 40 years. While the victory margins of 26 constituencies varied between 1 lakh to 5 lakhs, it was a close fight in Bhind, Gwalior, and Morena.
The BJP noted a vote share of 59.3 percent, which has shown a very modest increase compared to the 2019 elections—a 1.3 percent increase. Surprisingly, of the 369, only 58 saved their deposits, of which 29 of the BJP candidates saved their deposits, proving that there was absolute dominance of the BJP in this electoral war.
On the other hand, the Congress party, although having a 2.1 percent drop in its vote share, has been able to save its candidates' deposits by holding 32.4 percent. According to an electoral rule, a candidate must poll at least one-sixth of the total valid votes of the concerned constituency to save his or her security deposits.
In one of the most outstanding victories, BJP's sitting MP Shankar Lalwani established a record win in Indore by a massive margin of 11,75,092 votes, which is likely to be a record. A two-day defect of Congress candidate Akshay Kanti Bam from the party led to no congress candidate contesting the election on the Indore seat and all other 13 candidates losing their deposits. This list includes BSP candidate Lakshman Solanki, who stood second on the seat and got 51,659 votes.
Candidates of Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes had to deposit Rs 12,500 each, while general category candidates had to deposit Rs 25,000 as security. Counting the total amount forfeited against security was not done, say election officials.
However, two BSP candidates were able to retrieve their security. BSP's Narayan Tripathi, who contested as an independent from Satna, and Ramesh Garg, who contested from Morena, not only got their deposit back but also managed to score more than 1.85 lakh and over 1.79 lakh votes, respectively.
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