The Congress campaign is being led by Kamal Nath.
Exit polls for Madhya Pradesh have borne out what experts had predicted ahead of the Assembly elections on November 17 – the state is too close to call.
The BJP’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who has been the chief minister of the state since 2005, barring a brief period between 2018 and 2020, is looking for a fifth term, but his party has not declared him as the candidate for the top job this time around. The Congress campaign is being led by state unit president Kamal Nath, who is being supported by senior party leader Digvijaya Singh.
The state has 230 seats and 116 are needed for a majority.
The exit poll by Republic TV-Matrize has given an edge to the BJP, predicting that the ruling party will win between 118 and 130 seats. The prediction for the Congress is that it will emerge victorious in 97-107 seats and other parties will get 0-2.
The predictions by TV 9 Bharatvarsh-Polstrat swing in favour of the Congress, however, with the party being projected to win between 111 and 121 seats and the BJP being restricted to 106-116. The constituencies where other parties are projected to win are between zero and six.
The poll by Dainik Bhaskar has also given a slight edge to the Congress, predicting that the party will win 105-120 seats while the BJP is expected to win 95 and 115 seats. The number for other parties is also quite high, between 0 and 15, indicating that they may have a role to play if the BJP or the Congress fall short of a majority.
Jan Ki Baat has the closest prediction in its exit poll, with the numbers indicating that the results could go either way. It has projected 102-125 seats for the Congress, 100-123 for the ruling BJP and five for Others.
The outlier is News 24-Today’s Chanakya which has predicted a clear, comfortable victory for the BJP in the heartland state. The exit poll’s prediction for the ruling party is 151 while the Congress is projected to be reduced to 74, more than 40 seats short of the majority mark.
Health warning: Exit polls often get it wrong.
The BJP campaign has been led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the party has avoided giving a clear answer on whether Shivraj Singh Chouhan will be the chief minister if it wins in Madhya Pradesh. The party has also fielded seven MPs, including union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, Prahlad Patel and Faggan Singh Kulaste, for the Assembly polls.
These factors have led to speculation that the BJP may be looking beyond Mr Chouhan for the top job, but several experts have pointed out that the senior leader, who is also known as ‘Mama’, remains the party’s most popular leader in the state.
For Kamal Nath, who is the Congress’ state unit chief, these elections have become doubly important following the rebellion by Jyotiraditya Scindia in 2020, which had led to his government collapsing after just 15 months. Asked about the rebellion ahead of the elections, Mr Nath had said the Congress is confident of returning to power in the state and does not need Mr Scindia to do so.