The 2023 Madhya Pradesh Assembly election is scheduled to take place on November 17, with Rajasthan following on November 23 and Telangana on November 30. Mizoram will hold its elections on November 7, marking the beginning of the final round of polls for this year. Chhattisgarh, however, will vote in two phases, coinciding with Mizoram’s voting on November 7 and Madhya Pradesh’s voting on November 17. All election results will be declared on December 3. Approximately 16.1 crore people are expected to cast their votes in these elections, which are considered as ‘semi-finals’ leading up to the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
In the 2018 elections, the Congress claimed victories in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh. However, the party could not hold on to the latter, as ex-leader Jyotiraditya Scindia and nearly two dozen lawmakers from the ruling party switched sides to the BJP, resulting in the fall of Kamal Nath’s government. In Chhattisgarh, the Congress won 68 seats compared to the BJP’s 15. The Congress also secured 43% of the vote share in the state. Madhya Pradesh saw a close contest between the BJP and Congress, with the BJP winning 109 seats and the Congress winning 114. The vote share was equally split between the two parties at 41%. In Rajasthan, the Congress claimed victory with 100 seats, while the BJP secured 73 seats. The Congress formed the government with the support of the Bahujan Samaj Party. Telangana, on the other hand, saw a dominant performance by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi, winning 88 seats out of 119. The Congress came in second with 19 seats, followed by Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM with seven seats. Finally, in Mizoram, the Mizo National Front emerged victorious with 27 out of the 40 seats, while the Congress won four seats and the BJP secured one. The remaining seats were won by independent candidates. The term of the Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Telangana assemblies will end in January next year, while Mizoram’s term will end in December.