Jhabua byelection: Congress takes lead of 12,500 votes in 13th round

INDORE: Congress candidate Kantilal Bhuria took a lead of 12,547 votes against his BJP rival Bhanu Bhuria as results of 13th round of counting were announced for Jhabua assembly byelection.
In a close contest between the ruling Congress and BJP, about 1.72 lakh (62.01%) out of around 2.77 lakh voters exercised their franchise in the first-ever bypoll held at Jhabua seat on October 21.
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The election was necessitated after BJP MLA GS Damor, who later won the Lok Sabha election from Ratlam-Jhabua seat, resigned.
Counting for the bypoll started at 8am on Thursday at the Polytechnic College premises.
Congress took the lead from the very first round and maintained it till 13th round concluded around noon. Final results will be announced after 26 rounds of counting.
Apart from the Congress and BJP, three independents including BJP rebel Kalyan Singh Damor, Neelesh Damor and Rameshwar Singhar were also in the fray.
While former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, LoP Gopal Bhargava, party's state chief Rakesh Singh and Union ministers including Prahlad Patel campaigned for the party candidate, CM Kamal Nath, AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh with around a dozen ministers prepared and executed strategies for the Congress.
What raised many eyebrows was senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia giving a miss to the campaigning further exposing tall claims of unity within the party.
BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya was the first to comment on the initial outcome of the counting.
"Jhabua is a traditional seat of the Congreas and Kantilal Bhuria, who said that it was his last election, managed to get votes due to his emotional appeal," Vijayvargiya said.
While replying to BJP leaders' claim of change in the state government in near future, he added that Congress is divided into many groups in the state where Kamal Nath, Digvijaya Singh and Jyotiraditya Scindia have their own group and thus, anything can happen in future.