Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly election, 2013

Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly election, 2013
मध्य प्रदेश विधान सभा चुनाव, 2013

November 25, 2013 (2013-11-25)

All 230 seats in the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly 116 seats needed for a majority Turnout 71%   First party Second party   Leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan undeclared Party BJP INC Leader since 29 November 2005 Leader's seat Budhni and Vidisha Last election 143 seats 71 seats Seats before 143 71 Seats after 165 58 Seat change 22 13

Madhya Pradesh

Chief Minister before election Shivraj Singh Chouhan BJP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan BJP

A Legislative Assembly election (Hindi: मध्य प्रदेश विधान सभा चुनाव) was held on 25 November 2013 in Madhya Pradesh, India,^[1] with the result announced on 8 December.^[2] Along with other provincial elections, these were the first five elections in which the Election Commission of India implemented a "None of the above" (NOTA) voting option, allowing the electorate to register a neutral vote but not to outright reject candidates. In a first, the Election Commission of India also appointed Central Awareness Observers, whose main task was to oversee voter awareness and facilitation.^[3]

Opinion polls

All major pre-poll surveys predicted BJP's win.

List of declared candidates

A total of 2,586 candidates^[7] filled their nomination for 230 seats spread across 51 districts.^[8]

Prominent BJP candidates include former CM, Babulal Gaur (Govindpura constituency in Bhopal), Kailash Vijayvargiya (Mhow in Indore) and former PM, Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s nephew Anoop Mishra (Bhitarvar in Gwalior).

Prominent Congress candidates include former Union Minister Suresh Pachauri (Bhojpur), leader of the opposition in the assembly Ajay Singh (Churhat), Digvijaya Singh’s son Jaivardhan Singh (Raghogarh), and Sachin Yadav, son of former deputy CM, Subhash Yadav (Kasravad).

Note: Constituency names marked with SC or ST are reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes respectively.

Campaign

On 10 November, CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who won an election from the Budhni seat in 2008, decided to run again from two seats, Budhni and Vidisha.^[10]

A large number of rallies took place prior to elections addressed by various local and national level party leaders including BJP's prime ministerial candidate for forthcoming General Elections, Narendra Modi^{[11][12][13][14]} and Congress vice president, Rahul Gandhi.^[15][16][17]

BJP leader and Chief Ministerial candidate Shivraj Singh Chauhan used 3D Virtual Live Technology^[18] to address various rallies simultaneously from one place. This technology was previously used by Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi^[19] during Gujarat legislative assembly election, 2012

BJP extensively campaigned on social media^[20] including Twitter and Facebook to attract young and first time voters. BJP mobile app^[21] was also released in a view of upcoming state and General Elections on various platforms including Android, iOS, and Symbian.

The Election Commission also made people aware of the newly introduced NOTA button on EVMs.^[22]

Controversies

On 5 November, Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly speaker and Jabalpur Cantonment MLA, Ishwar Das Rohani passed away following a heart attack.^[23]

Polls were conducted peacefully and no major untoward incident was reported,^[24] however, the Election Commission said minor incidents of violence were reported from Bhind and Morena districts.^[25]

An assistant poll official in Katni district’s Vijayraghavgarh seat, KB Shrivastava, died of a heart attack while on duty.^[26] A case was registered against state minister Ranjana Baghel in Dhar district for allegedly bribing voters.^[27]

Election

Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) along with EVMs was used in 1 assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh elections.^[28][29] There were over 46 million voters were eligible to exercise their Right to Franchise. Polling for the 230-member assembly began at 0800 hours IST and continued till 1700 hours, baring three Naxal-affected seats of Baihar, Paraswada and Lanjhi in Balaghat district^[30] where it ended at 1500 hours.

Polling started with a brisk voter turnout reaching only 18%^[31] till 1100 hours, however, turnout increased significantly after mid day and reached 71% by the evening, suppressing 69.08% turnout recorded during 2008 elections, making it the highest recorded voter turnout in Madhya Pradesh.^[32]

Results

Counting of votes started on December 8, 2013 at 0800 hours IST which continued till later part of the evening. BJP emerged as the winner with 165 seats followed by Congress and BSP with 58 and 4 seats respectively. 3 Independent MLAs also won the polls.^[33][34]

 Summary of results of the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly election, 2013

	Political Party	Flag	Candidates	Seats Won	Net Change in seats	% of Seats	% of Votes	Change in % of vote
	BJP		-	165	22	71.74	-
	INC		-	58	13	25.22	-
	BSP		-	4	3	1.74	-
	Independent		-	3	No Change	1.30	-
			Total	230	Turnout	70.23%	Voters	4,36,00,000

Constituency-wise results

See also

• 2013 elections in India

References

Elections in India General elections 1920 1923 1926 1930 1934 1945 1951–52 1957 1962 1967 1971 1977 1980 1984 1989 1991 1996 1998 1999 2004 2009 2014 State elections 1920 1923 1926 1930 1934 1937 1946 1952 1954 1955 1957 1960 1961 1962 1964 1965 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1974 1975 1977 1978 1979 1980 1982 1983 1984 1985 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 See also: Elections in Andhra Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh Assam Bihar Chhattisgarh Delhi Goa Gujarat Haryana Himachal Pradesh Jammu and Kashmir Jharkhand Karnataka Kerala Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Manipur Meghalaya Mizoram Nagaland Odisha Puducherry Punjab Rajasthan Sikkim Tamil Nadu Telangana Tripura Uttar Pradesh Uttarakhand West Bengal