The central state of Madhya Pradesh is all set to vote on November 17 to elect 230 representatives of its assembly seats and the battle is gearing up to be primarily between the BJP and the Congress even though there are several other parties who have also fielded candidates such as SP, BSP and Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP.
If we take a look at both the parties' performances ever since Chhattisgarh was formed, it has primarily been advantage BJP except for the last time in 2018. BJP's best performance so far in the state has been in the Assembly election of 2003 where it won 173 seats. The Congress on the other hand, managed a win in 2018 by 114 seats but still ended up being out of power in 2020.
Assembly election 2003:
In the election in 2003 after Chhattisgarh had been carved out, BJP won a whopping 173 seats as compared to the INC's mere 38. Interestingly, the vote percentage did not see much of a gap with the BJP gaining 42.5 while Congress's vote percentage was 31.6.
Assembly election 2008:
In the next election, the BJP lost 30 seats which were almost equal to the number of seats gained by Congress. The party won 143 seats while the Congress secured 71 seats, but still losing the elections.
Assembly election 2013:
The seat see-saw continued with the BJP in the next election where the party won back some more seats and secured a total of 165 seats as compared to the Congress' 58. The grand old party lost 13 seats as compared to 2008 election in the state.
Assembly election 2018:
The last election in the state, however saw the Congress managing a rare win by securing 114 seats as compared to the BJP's 109. This was an interesting election as well with Congress coming out as the largest party but failing to win a majority. The saffron party's 109 seats were trumped after Congress claimed support from a Samajwadi Party's MLA, BSP's 2 MLAs and 4 Independent MLAs and Kamal Nath was ushered in as the chief minister, leading the Congress in the state.
However, the BJP scored a comeback to power after longtime Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia resigned from the party in 2020 and 22 MLAs loyal to him also quit to join the BJP, thereby rendering the Kamal Nath government sans majority. Shivraj Singh Chouhan came back to form the government.