Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Imarti Devi who was in news last month after Congress leader Kamal Nath’s “item” remark, lost from Dabra seat in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday. She was defeated by her relative of her child’s spouse, Congress’ Suresh Raje, also a turncoat who had left the BJP to join the Congress party ahead of by-polls, by 7,265 votes.
Just before the counting of votes, Imarti Devi had claimed that she will win by a huge margin of more than 80 thousand votes. However, till the results came, she had got less than 50 thousand votes.
Imarti Devi is among the 22 loyalists of Rajya Sabha MP Jyotiraditya Scindia who had resigned from the Congress and joined BJP leading to the collapse of the Nath government. Devi, along with nearly two dozens other Congress MLAs, had quit the party in March this year to join the BJP. She was later inducted in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan cabinet and the BJP fielded her from Dabra in Gwalior district.
The BJP leader was also under fire for not wearing a mask amid Covid-19 and for saying that she was immune to the virus as she was born amid cow dung and mud. She had even claimed that CM Shivraj and Scindia have promised to appoint her as Deputy chief minister if she wins with sizable votes.
Meanwhile, another Scindia loyalist and the minister Pradyumn Singh Tomar won the Gwalior seat defeating Congress’ Sunil Sharma. In Gwalior East, Congress’ Satish Sikarwar leads with around 2000 votes on BJP’s Munnalal Goyal, another Scindia loyalist, as per the latest reports.
Among Scindia loyalist ministers, only Girraj Dandotiya lost from Dimni seat in Morena. BJP had won 19 seats while Congress emerged victorious at seven and led at two others. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said, “We will review the reasons behind the losses including the one at Dabra.”
