NEW DELHI: In both Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan , Congress’s victory margins were slim, but it was not counting on its luck alone. Here was a party showing a lot of pluck as well.After a string of defeats since 2014, Congress also appears to have found ways to counter BJP’s strategy of saddling it with ‘vote katuwas’ or ‘spoilers’.In Madhya Pradesh, the party actually finished with a vote share that was 0.1 percentage points less than that of BJP. Yet, it won 114 seats — just two short of majority — while BJP ended at 109. Congress managed to convert votes into seats more effectively than BJP.In Rajasthan, Congress’ vote share was just 0.5 percentage points more than BJP. But this made a huge difference in the seat tally.Congress argues the anti-BJP sentiment was so strong that multiple poles like Bharatiya Tribal Party , 11 of 13 independents with Congress roots, BSP and CPM got some anti-BJP votes as well. Non-Congress, non-BJP votes totalled 21.9%, with 9.5% going to independents.Luck may or may not have played a part in helping Congress in the first-past-the-post system, but the party did show some nimble-footedness unlike in the past.As the counting in MP turned into a protracted exercise and the clash turned into a cliff-hanger , Congress stitched up the loose ends, spending the entire day contacting likely winners in BSP, SP and independents. Sources said Congress started to win over the ‘others’ winning MLAs so early it could have formed the government even if it had won fewer seats.State chief Kamal Nath sought the governor’s appointment on Tuesday while counting was still on, claiming Congress would emerge as the single-largest party and could form the government with others’ support.It was a marked change from Goa and Manipur where Congress emerged the single-largest party ahead of BJP and barely short of majority, but found that BJP had already bagged the ‘others’.A noticeable change was Congress’ ability to overcome “spoilers” who threatened to turn a direct face-off with BJP into a triangular contest.