Congress wins Chitrakoot Assembly bypoll

The Congress on Sunday won the Chitrakoot Assembly bypoll in Madhya Pradesh with its candidate Nilanshu Chaturvedi defeating his nearest BJP rival Shankar Dayal Tripathi by a margin of 14,133 votes.

While Mr. Chaturvedi polled 66,810 votes, Mr. Tripathi got 52,677 votes, returning officer A.P. Dwivedi said.

The counting of votes polled began at around 8 a.m. amid tight security in Satna district.

Around 65% voting was recorded in the bypoll necessitated following the death of sitting Congress MLA Prem Singh (65).

Prem Singh had won the Assembly constituency in the 1998, 2003 and 2013 elections. However, he had lost the seat to BJP’s Surendra Singh Gaharwar in the 2008 polls.