Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and three other states between Nov 12 and Dec 7, counting on Dec 11

EC on Saturday announced four-phased polls for five state assemblies, starting Nov 12 and ending on Dec 7.

Assembly elections in five states, three of them held by the ruling BJP, will be held in four phases between November 12 and December 7, Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat said on Saturday. Counting of votes for the five states, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and Telangana, will be held on 11 December.

The Election Commission on Saturday announced poll dates for Madhya Pradesh,Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and Telangana.(HT file photo)

The state elections, seen as a bellwether for next year’s national elections, will also decide the fate of the BJP’s three most prominent chief ministers: Chhattisgarh’s three-time Chief Minister Raman Singh, Madhya Pradesh’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan and the party’s only woman chief minister, Vasundhara Raje.

These are also going to be the most-watched, given that the Congress is the ruling BJP’s main rival in these states that are crucial to the BJP’s big plan to come back to power in 2019.

These three states send 65 lawmakers to parliament. In 2014, the BJP lost out in just three seats, sweeping all 25 seats in Rajasthan, 10 out of 11 in Chhattisgarh and 27 out of 29 in Madhya Pradesh.

Chhattisgarh is going to be the first of the five to vote and the only one to do so in two phases; November 12 and 20. The Maoist-affected districts in the southern part of the state will go to polls in the first phase.

Madhya Pradesh, which has 230 seats, and Mizoram, the smallest of the five states with 40 seats, will go to polls on November 28. The 200-member Rajasthan assembly will vote on December 7 along with Telangana.

In the desert-state of Rajasthan, which hasn’t voted back any chief minister in 25 years, the BJP is seen to have come under pressure following by-poll defeat in three seats this year. Moving into damage-control mode, the BJP replaced its chief in Rajasthan but could not find an alternative to its chief minister and retained Vasundhara Raje.

Raman Singh has held the fort in Chhattisgarh since 2003 and has won all three elections with a wafer-thin margin, the last being with less than one percent. He is hoping to benefit from a divide in the opposition vote and the newly-formed alliance between Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party and former chief minister Ajit Jogi’s Janta Congress Chhattisgarh.

The BJP also replaced its state president in Madhya Pradesh where its campaign it led by chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. The BJP has been in power in Madhya Pradesh for last 15 years and is perceived to be facing what some party leaders describe as a voter fatigue. The party proposes to change a large number of sitting legislators to deal with anti-incumbency.

Top party leaders from the ruling and opposition parties have been criss-crossing the poll-bound states addressing rallies and holding party meetings. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be addressing a rally in Bikaner on Saturday, Congress president Rahul Gandhi will be in Rajasthan on October 9 and 10.

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