The Congress, which was locked in a see-saw battle with the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, fell just two seats short of majority after a marathon counting process that lasted over 24 hours but that would not stop it from forming the government in the state after 15 years.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) won two seats in the state and party supremo Mayawati has announced her support for the Congress, taking it to the simple majority mark of 116 seats in the 230-member Assembly. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also said his party would extend support to the Congress. It has a lone winning candidate.

Interestingly, the two parties continue to play hardball over seat sharing in Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha polls and had skipped a joint opposition meet a day before the results were announced.

But even before the two regional satraps announced support, scenes outside the Congress and the BJP’s offices in Bhopal on Tuesday showed what was to follow: the grand old party making it three of three in the Hindi Heartland.

While BJP workers remained subdued despite being tantalizingly close to the magic figure all through Tuesday, an otherwise confused and disorganised Congress was on the offensive.

The Congress had even staked a claim to form the government in the state late on Tuesday, several hours before the final tally was announced by the Election Commission. The party’s state unit chief Kamal Nath told the media at 3.30 am that Congress has the required numbers and would meet the Governor soon.

Nath’s confidence stemmed from the ‘Others’ column in the results. Apart from the two BSP and one SP candidates, there were four victorious Independents, and all of them are cadre-turned-rebels.

Among them are Pradip Jaiswal from Waraseoni who defeated Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s brother-in-law Sanjay Singh Masani and Thakur Surendra Singh who made BJP minister Archana Chitnis to bite the dust. Vikram Singh Rana from Susner and Kedar Chidhabhai Dawar from Bhagwanpura are the other two.

All of them had quit the Congress after the party denied them a ticket for the assembly election.

According to sources, former MP chief minister and senior leader Digivijaya Singh was tasked with bringing them back into the party fold as soon as the trends on their seats became clear on Tuesday and has already got the nod from them.