The Election Commission (EC), on Monday, announced the date for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls. According to the announcement made during the press conference, the election will be held in a single phase on November 17. The results for the same will be declared on December 3.
What happened in the last assembly elections?
The election to the 230-member assembly in Madhya Pradesh is mainly fought between the ruling BJP and Congress. In the 2018 assembly polls, the Congress had won 114 seats, while the BJP got 109. However, the Congress government fell after many MLAs under the leadership of Jyotiraditya Scindia, who later became a Union minister, joined the BJP.
The BJP returned to power in March 2020 with Shivraj Singh Chouhan as chief minister for a fresh term. The BJP's current strength in the assembly is 127.
The announcement of poll dates was made by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar at a press conference here. Of the five states, polling in Chhattisgarh will be held in two phases. The Model Code of Conduct has come into force with the announcement of poll dates. The elections to five states are crucial as they are being held months before the Lok Sabha elections in April-May next year.
BJP deployed its big guns
The BJP has thrown open the leadership in Madhya Pradesh and deployed its big guns, several of whom have never contested assembly polls. Two of the ministers, Narendra Singh Tomar and Faggan Singh Kulaste, will be contesting from seats that were won by the Congress in 2018, while three of the four other Lok Sabha MPs will also fight in constituencies where the main opposition party had emerged victorious in the last assembly polls.
A former state BJP president, Tomar was appointed in July as the convenor of the party's election management committee in Madhya Pradesh, a responsibility which required him to oversee the entire state.
A three-term MP, Tomar was an MLA for two terms till 2008 and has been in Lok Sabha since 2009.
Union minister Prahlad Singh Patel is a five-term Lok Sabha MP and has never been an MLA while Kulaste, a tribal leader, was last an MLA way back in 1992 before getting elected to Lok Sabha six times and Rajya Sabha once.
Will CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan retain his chair?
Amid a view that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who led the BJP to massive wins in 2008 and 2013 before found wanting in 2018, is no longer the same political force, the party has sought to keep the leadership issue open by pitting many of its big names in the contest in a signal to those supporters who may no longer be drawn to him but remain sympathetic to it.
It is also a message to these senior leaders, who include national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, long seen as an aspirant for the chief minister's chair, that they should prove their mettle by ensuring a good show for the party before their leadership claim is considered sympathetically by its top brass, sources noted.
(With inputs from agencies)
