Madhya Pradesh forest minister and BJP candidate Ramniwas Rawat took a comfortable lead of about 5500 votes against his Congress rival Mukesh Malhotra at the Vijaypur constituency where counting of votes for the Assembly by election began Saturday morning.

Rawat led after the first five rounds of counting at Vijaypur.

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The polling was conducted on 13 November.

Rawat is a six-time Congress MLA from Vijaypur. He had quit the Congress during the Lok Sabha polls this year and joined the BJP.

MP CM Dr Mohan Yadav subsequently inducted Rawat into his cabinet and made him the forest minister.