Cong veteran Suresh Pachouri fails to break jinx

trails by over 25,000 votes

Congress veteran and former Union minister Suresh Pachouri on Tuesday failed to break the jinx of not winning an Assembly election even as the party showed signs of revival in Madhya Pradesh after 15 long years.

Pachouri, a four-term member of the Rajya Sabha, was in the fray from Bhojpur Assembly constituency for the third consecutive time, but failed to make a mark.

A prominent Brahmin face of the Congress, Pachouri began his political career with the Indian Youth Congress and went on to become a Rajya Sabha member in 1984. He was also the minister of state for defence under former prime minister late P V Narasimha Rao.

During UPA-I, Pachouri held the portfolios of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions as well as Parliamentary Affairs.

Pachouri was trailing BJP candidate Surendra Patwa by a margin of over 25,000 votes.

In the 2008 Assembly polls, Pachouri was the face of the Congress when it was widely believed that the party was at the cusp of returning to power after a five-year unstable stint of the BJP, which saw three chief ministers in its first term. The Congress lost badly.

Bhojpur, which is famous for an ancient Shiva temple was the "karmabhoomi" of the BJP’s first chief minister Sundarlal Patwa, who had shifted base from his hometown Neemuch.

A BJP stronghold since 1980, the constituency was won by Sunderlal Patwa for four consecutive terms from 1985 to 1998. The Congress won the seat only in 2003, but Pachouri was not the candidate then.