The Bharatiya Janata Party's controversial candidate Pragya Singh Thakur is heading towards a landslide victory against Congress's Digvijay Singh in Bhopal with a margin of over three lakh votes. The saffron party is ahead in 28 out of 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh.
The Congress, which wrested power from the BJP in the Assembly polls last year, is leading in only one seat.
Thakur, who recently kicked up a row with some of her remarks and was observing silence for 63 hours as a mark of penance, on Thursday broke the vow to express her elation over poll trends which showed her in the lead.
"I am happy with the people's response," she told reporters at her home and waved to people and her supporters who were chanting "Jai Shri Ram".
A beaming Thakur was seen waving to the supporters.
Thakur, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, on Monday apologised for the controversial remarks and set out to observe silence to do some "soul searching".
She had last week lauded Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse as a "patriot", sparking furious debate in the last lap of the seven-phase elections.
The Congress alleged that "insulting martyrs is in the DNA" of the BJP, which also condemned her remarks.
She also earlier said that she had "cursed" 26/11 attack martyr, IPS officer Hemant Karkare, for torturing her and falsely implicating her in the blast case.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week said he will never forgive Thakur for insulting Mahatma Gandhi.
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BJP candidates are leading by over four lakh votes in Indore, Khajuraho, Hoshangabad and Vidisha. Its candidates are ahead by over three lakh votes in Betul, Dewas, Jabalpur, Rajgarh, Shahdol and Ujjain.
Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia was trailing by more than a lakh vote in his traditional Guna seat against BJP's K P Yadav.
Congress candidate Nakul Nath, son of Chief Minister Kamal Nath, was ahead of BJP's Nathanshah Kawreti in Chhindwara seat.
In Morena, Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar was leading over Congress's Ramniwas Rawat.
Another Union minister, Virendra Singh, was leading in Tikamgarh over Congress's Kiran Ahirwar.
In the Chhindwara Assembly bypoll, Kamal Nath was leading over BJP's Vivek Bunty Sahu.
—With inputs from PTI
