Coming back to Madhya Pradesh, the Hindu Mahasabha played spoiler to the BJP in the Gwalior South constituency. Its candidate Laxman Soni got 179 votes and Narayan Singh Kushwaha, renewable energy minister in the outgoing BJP government, lost the seat by 121 votes to the Congress’ Praveen Pathak.

Since much of the support for the Shiv Sena and Hindu Mahasabha comes from pro-Hindutva voters, it is quite likely that the votes secured by these parties would have otherwise gone to the BJP.

Another pro-Hindutva outfit that harmed the BJP in Madhya Pradesh is the Bharatiya Shakti Chetna Party (BSCP). The party got 3,443 votes in the Damoh constituency, where BJP’s finance minister Jayant Malaiya lost to the Congress’ Rahul Singh by a narrow margin of 798 votes. This was one of the seats where the counting went on till late on December 11 with BJP and Congress inching ahead at different points of time.

The BSCP cost the BJP the Pathariya constituency, which is also located in Damoh district. Here the party’s candidate Chhoti Bahu Lodhi got 3,744 votes and the BJP lost the seat to the Bahujan Samaj Party by a margin of 2,205 votes.

The BSCP was founded by a spiritual guru Shaktiputra ji Maharaj, who is said to operate from an Asharam in Beohari in Shahdol district. His main political plank is the prohibition of alcohol and a “pure and religious way of life.”