Indore: Saffron sweep

Indore emerged as BJP bastion with the party virtually wiping out Congress in the district by impressive margin of votes on Sunday. Laying all speculations to rest, it manage to gain three more seats, but lost one in rural area. While BJP retained Indore-1, Indore2, Indore 4, Indore 5 and Mhow constituencies, it sprung a surprise for Congress by wresting Sanwer, Depalpur and Indore 3 seats.Congress had a lone dark horse in Jeetu Patwari, who managed a win from Rau.A record 70.61% voters had turned out to exercise their franchise during polling on November 25. That Shivraj Singh Chouhan factor worked for BJP is beyond contention. But minds of Indoreans were also made up on national issues of inflation and corruptionBJP MLA Ramesh Mendola’s victory in Indore 2 made into record books for the second time. He won with 91,017 votes extending his victory margin by over 51000 votes. Congress’ Chotu Shukla had no chance and he agrees by saying he never wanted the party ticket at the first place. Indore-2 was also the constituency where maximum number of voters in Indore pressed the NOTA button.BJP’s victory in Sanwer was unprecedented for Congress MLA Tulsiram Silawat. “I don’t know what went wrong,” he said. BJP’s Rajesh Sonkar contested elections for first time and won from Sanwer with a margin of 17583 votes.Usha Thakur of BJP, who enjoys popularity in Indore 1 and was a former MLA, proved she can win hearts in Indore 3 constituency too.  In Depalpur, Congress’ Satyanarayan Patel gave a tough fight to BJP’s Manoj Patel. It had maximum percentage of polling (in Indore) of 80.65%. The Indore-5 poll contest was also a tough one. BJP MLA Mahendra Hardia won by a margin of 14,418 votes. Congress Pankaj Sanghvi could do little. He lost his fourth election despite eying minority votes.BJP’s Malini Gaur managed to  win despite the Sindhi community’s threat to deny her  support .BJP MLA Sudarshan Gupta was facing a tough challenge from Congress in Indore-1. But Congress detractor Kamlesh Khandelwal, who stood second in the triangular contest with Gupta and Congress’s officials candidate Dipu Yadav, destroyed party’s prospects. Congress’ Patwari had been executing a well thought out plan since last four years after tasting defeat from BJP’s Jeetu Jirati in 2008 elections. He was seen among the people and gained their trust. This reflected in poll results. He defeated the MLA by a margin of 18,559 votes.