MP Home Minister Uma Shankar Gupta breaks myths by winning assembly poll

BHOPAL: By winning a seat in the Madhya Pradesh polls, state Home Minister Uma Shankar Gupta has broken a myth that a state home minister does not get re-elected in assembly elections.

Gupta retained his seat from Bhopal (Southwest) constituency with a total of 71,167 votes.

In the past, Shitla Sahai, Himmat Kothari and Kailash Chawla, had contested the assembly polls after serving as the state home minister but they had failed to get re-elected from their seats.

Gupta has also broken another myth that those who were once mayors of Bhopal do not succeed at the state level and fail to win the assembly polls. Gupta was earlier the mayor of Bhopal.

In the past, Congress had fielded five former Bhopal mayors in the assembly elections, all of whom had lost the battle. These included, R K Bisariya, Sunil Sood, Vibha Patel and Deep Chand Yadav.

Both Bisariya and Patel had lost from Govindpura constituency to veteran BJP leader Babulal Gaur, while Sood had lost in 2008.