The 2023 Madhya Pradesh Assembly election will be held in a single phase on November 17, followed by voting in Rajasthan on November 23 and in Telangana on November 30.

The final round of polls this year will begin with Mizoram voting on November 7.

Chhattisgarh is the only state in this round of polls to vote in two phases – the first will coincide with voting in Mizoram (i.e., November 7) and the second with Madhya Pradesh (i.e., November 17).

Approximately 16.1 crore people will cast their votes in this round of elections, which are widely seen as ‘semi-finals’ because they take place just months before the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

The Congress claimed a hat-trick of victories in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in 2018, but was couldn’t hold on to the latter after ex-leader Jyotiraditya Scindia and nearly two dozen lawmakers from the ruling party crossed to the BJP, leading to the fall of Kamal Nath’s government.

In Chhattisgarh the Congress won 68 seats while the BJP won just 15, with the former claiming 43 per cent of the vote-share. The Assembly has 90 seats and the majority mark is set at 46.

In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP and Congress finished almost neck-and-neck; the saffron party won 109 seats and the Congress 114. The state has 230 Assembly segments and the majority mark is 116.