8 Dec : Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, who led her party to a record third consecutive victory in the Assembly polls, today also scored a hat-trick as MLA, defeating BJP's Vijay Jolly by a margin of 14,078 votes. Dikshit, Chief Minister for past 10 years, got 39,747 votes as against Jolly's 25,669.
The 71-year-old Congress stalwart won this time from the newly created New Delhi constituency.The BJP was way behind with 13 seats while INLD and BSP got one seat each. In Madhya Pradesh, BJP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan led his party for a second term in office on development plank.
The saffron party has won five seats against Congress' three and was leading in 114 seats in the 230-member Assembly.The Congress was ahead in 64 seats while others led in 20 in an election which initially appeared to be a neck and neck race. Chouhan won yet again from Budhni assembly constituency with a huge margin of more than 40,000 votes.
Other BJP winners included State Assembly Speaker Ishwardas Rohani who won by more than 25,000 votes from Jabalpur Cantonment, Vijay Shah from Harsud, Raghavji from Vidisha, Tukojirao Pawar from Dewas, Kailash Vijayawargiya from Mhow and Surya Prakash Meena from Shamshabad.
The Congress winners were Lakhan Ghanghoriya from Jabalpur north, Satyanarayan Patel from Depalpur and Yadvendra Singh from Tikamgarh. Singh defeated former Bhartiya Janshakti Party President Uma Bharti.
Again in neighbouring Chhattishgarh, the BJP was on course to retaining power winning the first two results and having established a lead in 49 other constituencies in the 90-member House.The Congress is projected to win 34 seats.
Needing 46 seats for a simple majority, the BJP banked heavily on the performance plank with its campaign being steered by Chief Minister Rama Singh.BSP and NCP are projected to win one seat each.
If the trend translates into final results, the saffron party may do a shade better than its tally of 50 seats against Congress' 37 seats in the 2003 election.The final results are expected to be out by the evening.