Cong veteran Satyavrat's rebellion goes in vain

Congress veteran Satyavrat Chaturvedi picked up cudgels against his own party after his son failed to get the ticket for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections from the family stronghold in Khajuraho district.

Chaturvedi's son Nitin, popular as Bunty Bhaiya in Khajuraho, quit the Congress and contested the Assembly polls on a Samajwadi Party ticket from the Rajnagar Assembly seat against the Congress nominee and three-term MLA Vikram Singh alias Nati Raja.

The Congress expelled Satyavrat after he joined the election campaign for his son and also shared the stage with Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav.

Interestingly, the Congress candidate Nati Raja was a one-time protege of Satyavrat who was a formidable face of the grand old party in Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh.

As the results trickled in, it turned out that BJP candidate Arvind Pateriya had benefited from the fight. Pateriya was leading with 23,195 votes with Nati Raja of the Congress snapping at his heels with 22,848 votes.

Nitin was relegated to the fourth position with 14,793 votes.

For the Chaturvedis, the Assembly election appeared to be a rebellion that did not fetch the desired result.

In neighbouring Chhatarpur, Satyavrat's brother Alok Chaturvedi had surged ahead with a lead of 3,533 votes over his closest rival Archana Guddu Singh of the BJP.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally in Chhatarpur did not bring the desired result for the BJP candidate.