Chhattisgarh outgoing Deputy Chief Minister, TS Singh Deo on Monday said that the results of the state assembly elections declared a day earlier were ‘unexpected’ for him as he had not visualised his defeat.

Speaking to ANI, Singh also said that no one was able to guess that Congress would not be able to form its government in Chhattisgarh.

“It was not expected. I did not visualise that I would lose or the Congress party would not come to power in the state…No one was able to guess that Congress would not be able to form its government in Chhattisgarh. All the polls that came out, gave the government to the Congress in Chhattisgarh, everyone went wrong,” Singh said.

The former Deputy CM said that though the Congress did not lose its vote share the BJP had significantly increased its share to register a political victory.

“We will have to introspect our loss. All the surveys of media failed here. We were expecting to get as many seats as BJP got. Congress vote did not decrease. Our vote share was the same as compared to the last time but BJP was able to increase their vote share by 14%. From 32%, they reached 46% which was unexpected” TS Singh Deo said.

BJP’s Tsunami swept the Hindi heartland on the counting day for four states that polled for their assemblies last month, the BJP, with its stunning mandates in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, stumped not just their rivals but also some pollsters who had predicted tight races in these states.

The election results in four states, especially the losses in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, came as a huge blow to the Congress’s hopes for 2024, as it is now out of power across a vast swathe of the Hindi heartland.

Of the 90 assembly constituencies in Chhattisgarh, the BJP bagged 54 while the Congress won 35, claiming a significant vote share of 46.27 per cent to 42.23 per cent of the incumbent Congress.

Singh Deo, lost their seats in the poll results declared on Sunday.

He fell short by 94 votes to Rajesh Agrawal of the BJP.

A total of 1,181 candidates across parties pitted themselves against each other for the 90-member Chhattisgarh assembly.

The polling in the state was held in two phases, with the first on November 7 featuring 223 candidates and the second seeing 958 candidates put their electoral fates to the test on November 17.

The major contenders in the battle for the hustings in Chhatisgarh were the BJP, Congress, Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (JCC) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

Other regional outfits, such as the Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP), the Hamar Raj Party (HRP) and the Left parties, were also in the fray.

Even as the Congress failed to secure a fresh term at the helm, outgoing Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, who faced allegations of receiving payoffs in excess of Rs 500 crores from the promoters of the Mahadev betting app, scored a face-saving over his distant nephew and BJP candidate Vijay Baghel, from the Patan constituency, by a margin of 19,723 votes.

BJP stalwart and former CM Raman Singh, who came to be regarded as one of the longest-serving chief ministers of any state while at the helm of Chhattisgarh, prevailed over Congress’s Girish Dewangan from the Rajnandgaon constituency by a margin of 45,084 votes.

The Naxal stronghold of Bastar, which was in focus because of the demographic dominance of tribal communities, saw the

Congress’s Baghel Lakheshwar won over the BJP’s Maniram Kashyap by a slender margin of 6,434 votes.

Corruption allegations, particularly with regard to recruitment for government jobs, and the alleged Mahadev betting scam became major political talking points leading up to the Chhattisgarh elections.

The BJP’s win in Chhattisgarh defied exit-poll projections, which pointed to a close contest and an eventual win for the Congress.

The resounding mandate for the BJP in the tribal heartland is also being seen as a thumbs down to the Congress’s caste census pledge.