New Delhi|Dec, 3: Early trends in the counting of votes on Sunday showed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leading in three key Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh (MP), Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.
As per the Election Commission of India (ECI) website, Congress was trailing in Chhattisgarh but moved far ahead of the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in Telangana.
The early poll results signal that the saffron party remains a strong political force in the key states. This gives the party has a significant edge over rivals in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
As per the latest trends (at 11-20 AM) showed by ECI, BJP led in as many as 150 seats in MP while it was ahead in 110 seats in Rajasthan. As against this, Congress led in 70 seats in MP while staying ahead in 69 seats in Rajasthan.
The grand old party maintained a lead in as many as 58 seats in Telangana. In Chhattisgarh, BJP and Congress remained neck-to-neck. While BJP led on 46 seats, Congress stayed ahead on 40 seats.
The massive win for BJP in MP indicated that incumbent Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has clearly beaten anti-incumbency and emerged more powerful despite some experiments by the central leadership of the saffron party. In a big surprise for state-level leaders, the BJP top brass decided to field many of its MPs and Ministers in the assembly election. This was seen by political analysts as a move to clip the wings of Chouhan.
As the BJP win appeared clear after several rounds of counting, Chouhan thanked the people of the state for the mandate. He credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his leadership and said that the BJP would form the next government with full majority.
In the state of Rajasthan, the trend of people revolving power between Congress and BJP every election appeared to be continuing. The heavy dose of welfare schemes by the Congress government led by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot failed to woo voters.
As predicted by most exit polls, Congress party swept Telangana and moved towards dethroning the BRS from power. The counting of votes for Mizoram would take place on December 4.
