Datia, Aug 3 (IANS) BJP candidate Ashutosh Tiwari took an early lead in the counting of votes for the Datia Assembly by-election in Madhya Pradesh on Monday, with the contest being closely watched as the ruling party seeks to reclaim a seat it lost to the Congress in the 2023 Assembly elections.

According to trends after the first round of counting, Tiwari secured 4,651 votes against 3,367 polled by the Congress candidate, opening a lead of 1,184 votes.

Other candidates together secured 1,917 votes.

Counting is underway at the Government Polytechnic College in Datia under tight security.

The exercise will be completed in 15 rounds with 21 counting tables, including 20 for Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and one for postal ballots. Around 350 officials have been deployed for the counting process.

The by-election was necessitated after the Datia Assembly seat fell vacant following the disqualification of Congress MLA Rajendra Bharti after his conviction in a cooperative rural development bank fraud case.

Bharti had defeated senior BJP leader and then Home Minister Narottam Mishra by 7,742 votes in the 2023 Assembly elections, making the bypoll politically significant for both the BJP and the Congress.

Polling was held on July 30. Of the 2,20,410 eligible voters, 1,57,473 cast their votes across 291 polling stations, registering a turnout of 71.44 per cent, nearly nine percentage points lower than in the 2023 Assembly elections.

Interestingly, a day before the counting of votes, the Congress party expelled Bharti from its primary membership for his involvement in anti-party activities during the bypoll. The action came months after his conviction resulted in the vacancy of the Datia Assembly seat.

Reacting to the party’s decision, Bharti questioned the move and said it would send a wrong message to workers who had stood by the organisation.

“I have contested elections on Samajwadi Party and BSP tickets in the past. But the people of Madhya Pradesh have seen how Congress workers struggled to keep the party alive. If the party is now removing such leaders and taking action against those who fought for it, then who will continue to struggle for Congress?” Bharti said, talking to IANS on Monday.

–IANS

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