Congress candidate Nakul Nath lost by 1,13,618 votes in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhindwara Lok Sabha constituency, which has been a stronghold of the party for decades.

Nakul Nath, the son of veteran Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, had polled 5,31,120 votes and his rival, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s Bunty Vivek Sahu, was won by 6,44,738 votes, the Election Commission data showed.

Reacting to the early leads, Kamal Nath said: “It is what it is”, NDTV reported.

Months earlier, the Congress had swept six of the seven Assembly segments that make up the Chhindwara Lok Sabha constituency in the Madhya Pradesh state elections, the results of which were declared on December 4.

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Chhindwara was the sole Lok Sabha seat won by the Congress in the 2019 general elections – the BJP had won 28 of state’s 29 parliamentary constituencies. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Chhindwara and Guna were the only two seats won by the Congress from Madhya Pradesh.

Kamal Nath is a nine-time parliamentarian from Chhindwara. In the last 44 years, the BJP has won Chhindwara only once, reported The Hindu. Kamal Nath had led the Congress to a victory in the 2018 Madhya Pradesh state elections, winning 114 of 229 seats.

He was the chief minister from December 2018 to March 2020, when the state government was toppled after former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia and his supporters rebelled and joined the BJP.

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