LS Polls 2024:BJP's Shivraj Singh Chouhan leads from Vidisha with over 3 lakh votes

New Delhi: Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan is leading from the Vidisha constituency with over 2 lakh votes, as the counting of votes for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls is underway.
Pitted against Chouhan are Congress's Prataphanu Sharma and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP's) Kishan Lal Ladiya.
According to the Election Commission of India (ECI), Chouhan is leading with a margin of 3,17,189 votes while Congress's Sharma is trailing behind; BSP's Ladiya is trailing by 4,18,793 votes.
The polling for Vidisha was held in Phase 3 on May 7.
Earlier, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP's Ramakant Bhargava secured the Vidisha seat while Congress's Shailendra Rameshchandra Patel came in second place.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, BJP leader and late former union minister Sushma Swaraj defeated Congress's Lakshman Singh from Vidisha.
Seats falling under the Vidisha constituency include Bhojpur, Vidisha, Basoda, Budhni, Ichhawar, Khategaon, Sanchi, and Silwani.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is eyeing a third straight term in power, while the Opposition under the umbrella of the INDIA bloc is seeking to wrest power from the ruling party.
Most exit polls predicted a straight term for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with quite a few of them projecting a two-thirds majority for the ruling BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
The Congress party and its allies dismissed the exit polls as "orchestrated" and a work of "fantasy", asserting that the opposition INDIA bloc will form the next government at the Centre.
Two polls predicted the BJP would also improve its numbers from the 303 seats it won in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. In the 2019 elections, NDA wrested 353 seats, of which the BJP won 303 alone. The Opposition's UPA got only 93 seats of which the Congress got 52.
Even before the counting of the votes, the Bharatiya Janata Party won one seat of Surat Lok Sabha.
The Lok Sabha elections for 543 seats of the lower house were held across seven phases from April 19 to June 1.