RAIPUR: As Congress candidate

won the seat for the party, BJP now does not have a representative in the assembly from entire tribal

which accounts for 12 seats in the assembly. Congress candidate polled 62097 votes while his nearest BJP rival

secured 44235 votes.

Janata Congress candidate

secured 6527 votes while communist party of india (CPI) nominee Hidma ram Mandavi got 6949 votes.

Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel tweeted in four words "Danteshwari Mai ki Jai" with hashtags #Chitrakot by polls, #electionresults2019. Baghel said that he had full faith in the people of

and they stood up to his expectations by bringing victory to Congress. He extended greetings to the district administration to conduct free and fair elections in the Maoist affected region.

"Though the voter turn out in by polls was two per cent less than the last year's assembly elections, yet our candidate got over 100 more votes than the last time which is like a blessing from people. Now, Bastar and Surguja regions are ours with no seat for BJP. Congress now has 69 seats of the 90 assembly seats in Vidhan Sabha", he said.

Celebrating with the party workers after the victory, Benjam gave credit of his achievement to chief minister Baghel and said that it's people's triumph. Benjam said that he aims to work towards generating employment for the local public in Chitrakot and work on development issues.

Reacting to the defeat, leader of opposition Dharamlal Kaushik said, "Ruling Congress has used its power and similar model of winning the Chitrakot election which it had used in last month’s Dantewada by-polls. But BJP workers and leaders are not going on back foot and we will prepare much better for our next battle and come back stronger."

Counting of votes began at 8am in the morning at Women's Polytechnic College in Jagdalpur and it took 17 rounds of counting to reach the results. Congress candidate established lead in the initial rounds which improved to unassailable lead as counting progressed.

An estimated 78.32 per cent of voters had exercised their franchise and there were six candidates in fray for the seat, reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates. About 229 polling booths were set up with a security cover of over 7000 troops and several drones to keep vigil at the Maoist insurgent region.

Despite high voltage electioneering by both BJP and ruling Congress with former chief minister Raman Singh and chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, the latter made a dent capturing all 12 seats of Bastar with the latest victory.

The by-poll, held on Octoner 21, was necessitated after Congress MLA Deepak Baij from Chitrakot constituency got elected to Lok Sabha from Bastar parliamentary constituency. Baij had defeated BJP's Kashyap in 2018 assembly elections by the margin of 1770 votes.

During the 2018 assembly elections, Congress had won 11 out of 12 seats in entire Bastar region as the Congress swept the assembly poll and captured power from the BJP after a span of 15 years. BJP could win only Dantewada (ST), a constituency neighbouring Chitrakot, but its legislator Bhima Mandavi was killed in a deadly Maoist attack during the last Lok Sabha elections. In the subsequent byelection held last month, Congress wrested the Dantewada seat from the BJP.

After its Dantewada loss, BJP had pinned hopes on Capturning Chitrakot (ST) but the saffron party could not win. With this victory, the ruling Congress has a strength of 69 members in the 90 member assembly.