248. Chhatna

Rashtriya Sarvajan Party held the seat; the winning margin widened from 13.1% to 16.4%.

• Won on a lower shareIts own vote share fell 3.9% — it held because the rest of the vote was more divided.
• New challengerAll India Trinamool Congress (AITC) finished second with 31.2% — it did not contest here in 1996.
• Vote fragmentedThe top two took only 78.9% between them, down from 90.1% — the field split more ways.

Written from the constituency figures by a fixed set of rules — no language model.