Chitrakoot bypoll: Congress wins election by huge margin

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The Congress candidate Nilanshu Chaturvedi has won over his nearest BJP rival Shankar Dayal Tripathi in Chitrakoot Assembly bypoll in Madhya Pradesh. The counting of votes polled in the November 9 by-election began at around 8 am amid tight security.

• Congress won Chitrakoot bypoll
• The counting till now shows that the seat will go to Congress, but what happens here does not denote the mood of the state: BJP, Nand Kumar
• After 12th round, Congress ahead with more than 25,000 votes
• Congress candidate Nilanshu Chaturvedi leading over BJP's Shankar Dayal Tripathi with over 18,000 votes after ninth round of counting
• Congress candidate Nilanshu Chaturvedi leading over BJP's Shankar Dayal Tripathi with over 10,000 votes after sixth phase of counting.

Earlier, Chaturvedi was leading by 6,000 votes over Tripathi at the end of the third round of counting, an election official said. Around 65 per cent voting was recorded in the bypoll necessitated following the death of sitting Congress MLA Prem Singh (65). Singh had won the assembly constituency, bordering Uttar Pradesh, in the 1998, 2003 and 2013 elections. However, he had lost the seat to BJP's Surendra Singh Gaharwar in the 2008 polls. Though 12 candidates contested the by-election, the main fight was between Chaturvedi and Tripathi.