Elections to the
Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly
The Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha or the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly is the unicameral state legislature of Madhya Pradesh state in India.
The seat of the Vidhan Sabha is at Bhopal, the capital of the state. It is housed in the ''Vidhan ...
were held in November 1998. The
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British ...
won a majority of seats and
Digvijaya Singh
Digvijaya Singh (born 28 February 1947) is an Indian politician and a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha. He is Ex-General Secretary of the Indian National Congress party's All India Congress Committee. Previously, he had served as the ...
was sworn in as the new Chief Minister for the second time.
These were the last elections to the legislative assembly before the passage of the
Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000
Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000 is an Act of the Parliament of India which enabled the creation of Chhattisgarh state out of Madhya Pradesh. The law was introduced by the NDA government headed by Prime Minister Vajpayee to fulfil its ...
, which carved out the new state of
Chhattisgarh from
Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital city, capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar, and Rewa, India, Rewa being the othe ...
. From the 320 seats in the undivided legislative assembly, the new
Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly
The Chhattisgarh Vidhan Sabha or the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly is the unicameral state legislature of Chhattisgarh state in India.
The seat of the Vidhan Sabha is at Raipur, the capital of the state. The Vidhan Sabha comprises 90 Me ...
was assigned 90 Seats, while Madhya Pradesh was left with the remaining 230 seats.
Result
Source:
Elected Members
The Kanshiram - BSP twist
BJP was constantly increasing their seat count, in the aftermath of the Ayodhya Demolition, and so was BSP under the leadership of
Kanshiram, who was leading a silent revolution among the Dalits, Tribals and OBCs, for electorally capturing power in the government, and to work for self-upliftment. Both the parties were a concern for the congress, but not BJP as much as the BSP was. The reason was that the vote base of Congress and BSP was the same, which meant that even a fractional shift of voters from Congress to BSP would have costed Congress many seats. The fiercely contested election can be understood by the fact that the vote difference of Congress and the BJP was merely 1.31%.
To the surprise of all, Kanshiram during his election rally announced that "BJP was jumping with happiness that Kanshiram would fight elections in Madhya Pradesh without any alliance, that's why I have decided only to contest election in those seats in which we can damage Congress, enough to win the seat and in the rest of seats I would ask you all to vote for the strongest party against BJP, we can't let them win the elections". True to his words, BSP fought elections only in 170 seats, as compared to 286 during the last elections. They retaining all the 11 seats they won last election.
References
{{Madhya Pradesh elections
1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...
1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...
Madhya