BHOPAL, Mar 9: A fresh controversy has arisen in Madhya Pradesh between the ruling Congress and the Opposition BJP over the percentage of votes polled by them in the Lok Sabha elections.In May 1996 elections, the ruling Congress had got 31.02 per cent of the votes which went up to 39.40 per cent this year while the party's tally of seats increased from eight to ten only.
The BJP on the other hand got 45.7 per cent of the polled votes against 41.32 per cept votes in the last elections.
The increase of 8.38 per cent in the Congress votes has been cited by chief minister Digvijay Singh as proof of the ruling party's increased popularity in the state.
This claim is, however, disputed by the BJP which claims that the increase in the percentage of votes polled by the Congress has nothing to do with the rise in its popularity in the state.
The BJP has said that the Congress vote percentage has risen simply due to the fact that it has now received votes polled by the All India Indira Congress (Tiwari andthe Madhya Pradesh Vikas Congress).
In the previous polls, All India Indira Congress (Tiwari) had got 4.70 per cent of the votes polled but Madhya Pradesh Vikas Congress had set up nominees in only two constituencies and hence there was no possibility of it getting even one per cent of the total votes polled.
Chief minister Digvijay Singh has said that although Congress did not get as many seats as expected, its vote percentage had gone up.
Singh said that this rise in the ruling party's vote percentage had come at a time when there had been a decline in the vote percentage of ruling parties in Rajasthan and Maharashtra.
BJP, which had in the last elections got 27 seats by polling 41.23 per cent of the votes cast, this time it has won 30 seats by polling 45.73 per cent of the votes.
Although Congress vote percentage went up by 8.38 per cent, its tally of seats increased only by two, while BJP got three more seats with a 4.41 per cent increase in votes polled.
The figures for percentage of votespolled reveal the interesting fact that Bahujan Samaj Party which had, in the last elections, got 8.18 per cent of the votes and two seats this time got 8.70 per cent of the votes but failed to win even a single seat.
The figures show that the most significant drop in vote percentage has been in the case of independent nominees.
The independents, who had received 9.50 per cent of the votes in the last polls, this time had to be content with only 1.22 per cent, a drop of 8.18 per cent.
Janata Dal had, in the last elections, got only 1.08 per cent of votes and this time its share increased marginally to only 1.22 per cent.
Samajwadi Party had, in May 1996, got a mere 0.06 per cent of the votes and now its share has also gone up marginally to 0.38 per cent.
Samajwadi Party, however, had the satisfaction of having its nominee, Ashok Vikram Singh securing the third place in the Damoh constituency.
