The Congress on Monday retained the Datia Assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh, with Ghanshyam Singh trouncing nearest rival Ashutosh Tiwari of the BJP by 6,016 votes in the bypoll held amid students’ stir and differences in the saffron camp after senior leader Narottam Mishra was denied a ticket.Congress leaders linked the victory to “awakening” among students and other sections of the country, calling it the “beginning of the end of the BJP rule”.At the end of all 15 rounds of counting, Singh secured 66,757 votes, while Tiwari polled 60,741 votes. Azad Samaj Party candidate Damodar Yadav finished third by bagging 22,527 votes, District Election Officer and Datia District Magistrate Swapnil Wankhade told PTI.A total of 21 candidates were in the fray, including Ghanshyam Singh and Ashutosh Tiwari.At one point, Singh’s lead of 12,607 votes over Tiwari appeared unassailable, but the BJP nominee managed to close the gap to an extent in the last rounds.The byelection was necessitated after a Delhi court in April sentenced sitting Congress MLA Rajendra Bharti to three years’ imprisonment in a cheating case, leading to the termination of his Assembly membership.The bypoll held on July 30 recorded a voter turnout of 71.44 per cent.MP BJP president Hemant Khandelwal said the party would review the poll outcome and take action based on its findings.“Discipline is paramount in the BJP. All our workers are equal. The party will take action based on the conclusions reached after the review,” he said.An elated Ghanshyam Singh declared that the verdict marks the beginning of the end of the BJP’s rule.His priority would be to promote communal harmony in Datia and end political vendetta.“I will work to end gambling and betting rackets in the constituency,” the newly-elected Congress leader added.In Bhopal, celebrations broke out at the state Congress headquarters with party workers distributing sweets and dancing to the beating of drums.Congress veteran and former MP chief minister Kamal Nath attributed the electoral win to the hard work of party workers, saying the people of Datia refused to “bow to the pressure of power”.“This victory is not limited to a by-election. It’s a sign of the change taking place in the country and Madhya Pradesh. Rahul Gandhi has awakened students in the country, and every section of society is agitating (against the BJP),” Nath said.Alleging that every section of society is troubled by the BJP’s misrule and people are yearning to throw out the “corrupt regime”, Nath said this change has begun from Datia, the city of Maa Pitambara.Former MP Digvijaya Singh thanked the electorate of Datia and hailed the committed cadres of Congress, who he said didn’t abandon the party despite hardships and chose to endure them.“The party will stand with every Congress worker in ups and downs. We will do whatever we can for their development,” he said in a statement.State Congress President Jitu Patwari described it as a victory for the people of Datia, a clarion call for the 2028 assembly elections, and the result of the collective efforts of Congress leaders.Patwari told reporters in New Delhi that Datia voters have exposed the corruption, terror, and arrogance of the BJP-led government.He said the people of Datia have laid the foundation for change and the BJP’s departure, expressing confidence that Congress will return to power after the 2028 assembly elections.Earlier, counting of votes began at 8 a.m. on Monday at the Polytechnic College amid tight security.In the 2023 elections, Rajendra Bharti defeated BJP leader and former state Home Minister Narottam Mishra by over 7,700 votes from Datia.The bypoll was held amid heartburn among Mishra’s supporters after the party denied him a ticket and picked Ashutosh Tiwari. Mishra’s supporters had clashed with police and blocked a national highway earlier in July.Mishra later shared a stage with Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, urging party workers to rally behind Tiwari, who replaced him.At Tiwari’s nomination rally in Datia, Mishra turned emotional as senior BJP leaders, including CM Yadav, sought to console him.Ghanshyam Singh, who belongs to the erstwhile Datia royal family, had earlier represented Datia and Sevda seats. His father, Maharaj Krishna Singh Judeo, was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Bhind-Datia constituency on a Congress ticket in 1984.Ghanshyam Singh had lost to Narottam Mishra in the 2008 assembly election. After an initial setback in 2013, he won the Sewda seat in 2018. He had lost the previous assembly election to BJP’s Pradeep Agrawal in Sewda in Datia district.The Congress’s victory shows the party managed the delicate caste equations in the Datia constituency well, where the Brahmin, Kushwaha, Pal, and Thakur communities dominate various pockets. OBCs, SCs, and STs also hold sway, apart from Muslims.With the victory, the BJP’s strength in the 230-member assembly now stands at 164, while the Congress’s numbers improved by one to 65.