A Legislative Assembly election was held on 25 November 2013 in

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 ...

, India, with the result announced on 8 December. Along with four other state assembly elections, these were the first elections in which the

Election Commission of India The Election Commission of India (ECI) is a constitutional body. It was established by the Constitution of India to conduct and regulate elections in the country. Article 324 of the Constitution provides that the power of superintendence, dir ...

(ECI) implemented a "

None of the above "None of the above" (NOTA), or none for short, also known as "against all" or a "scratch" vote, is a ballot option in some jurisdictions or organizations, designed to allow the voter to indicate disapproval of the candidates in a voting syst ...

" (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.

Opinion polls

All major pre-poll surveys predicted

BJP The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

's win.

List of declared candidates

A total of 2,586 candidates filled their nomination for 230 seats spread across 51

districts A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municipa ...

. Prominent

candidates included former CM

Babulal Gaur Babulal Gaur Yadav (2 June 1929 – 21 August 2019) was an Indian politician from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who served as the 16th Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. He was elected ten times to the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly, twice ...

(Govindpura constituency in Bhopal), Gopal Bhargava (Rehli in Sagar),

Kailash Vijayvargiya Kailash Vijayvargiya (born 13 May 1956) is an Indian politician serving as National General Secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party . He started his political career in the Indore Bharatiya Janata Party, and was the mayor of Indore, a six-time le ...

(Mhow in Indore) and former PM,

Atal Bihari Vajpayee Atal Bihari Vajpayee (; 25 December 1924 – 16 August 2018) was an Indian politician who served three terms as the 10th prime minister of India, first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months fr ...

’s nephew Anoop Mishra (Bhitarvar in Gwalior). Prominent

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

candidates included former Union Minister

Suresh Pachouri Suresh Pachouri (born 1 July 1952) is an Indian politician and a member of the Indian National Congress from Madhya Pradesh. He had served as union minister of state in the Ministry of Defence (1995-1996) and in the Ministry of Personnel, Public ...

(Bhojpur), leader of the opposition in the assembly Ajay Singh (Churhat),

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 ...

’s son

Jaivardhan Singh Jaivardhan Singh (born 9 July 1986) is an Indian politician and is the youngest member of Madhya Pradesh's 14th Vidhan Sabha. He served as the Cabinet Minister of Urban Development and Housing in Kamal Nath Ministry, Government of Madhya Pradesh ...

(Raghogarh), and Sachin Yadav, son of former Deputy CM, Subhash Yadav (Kasravad). * = Puar died of cardiac arrest on 20 June 2015.

Campaign

On 10 November, CM

Shivraj Singh Chouhan Shivraj Singh Chouhan (born 5 March 1959), is an Indian politician and member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is the 17th and current Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, having been elected to the same position 3 times in the past, and a Membe ...

, who won an election from the Budhni seat in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing ...

, decided to run again from two seats, Budhni and

Vidisha Vidisha (विदिशा, formerly known as Bhelsa and known as Besnagar in ancient times) is a city in central Madhya Pradesh, India. It is located 62.5 km northeast of the state capital, Bhopal. The name "Vidisha" is derived from th ...

. A large number of rallies took place prior to elections addressed by various local and national level party leaders including

's prime ministerial candidate for forthcoming

General Elections A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the List of Prime Ministers of India, 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the List of chief ministers of Gujarat, Chief Minist ...

and

vice president,

Rahul Gandhi Rahul Gandhi ( ; born 19 June 1970) is an Indian politician and a member of the Indian Parliament, representing the constituency of Wayanad, Kerala in the 17th Lok Sabha. A member of the Indian National Congress, he served as the president of ...

. BJP leader and Chief Ministerial candidate Shivraj Singh Chouhan used 3D Virtual Live Technology to address various rallies simultaneously from one place. This technology was previously used by the then Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi during

2012 Gujarat legislative assembly election The 2012 Gujarat Legislative Assembly elections were held in the Indian state of Gujarat in December 2012 for all 182 members of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly. Incumbent Chief Minister Narendra Modi of Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), in power si ...

BJP extensively campaigned on

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...

including

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...

to attract young and first time voters. BJP's

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on ...

was also released in a view of upcoming state and

on various platforms including Android, iOS, and

Symbian Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian ...

. ECI also made people aware of the newly introduced NOTA button on EVMs.

Controversies

On 5 November,

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 ...

speaker and Jabalpur Cantonment MLA, Ishwar Das Rohani died following a heart attack. Polls were conducted peacefully and no major untoward incident was reported, however, the

Election Commission An election commission is a body charged with overseeing the implementation of electioneering process of any country. The formal names of election commissions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and may be styled an electoral commission, a c ...

said minor incidents of violence were reported from Bhind and

Morena Morena is the headquarter city of Morena district, in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is governed by a municipality corporation. It is also the administrative headquarters of the Chambal division. It is from Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. ...

districts. An assistant poll official in Katni district’s

Vijayraghavgarh Vijayraghavgarh is a town, tehsil headquarters, and a nagar panchayat located in Katni district in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It belongs to Jabalpur division and is east of district headquarters Katni. Demographics India census ...

seat, KB Shrivastava, died of a heart attack while on duty. A case was registered against state minister Ranjana Baghel in Dhar district for allegedly bribing voters.

Election

Voter-verified paper audit trail Voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) or verified paper record (VPR) is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballotless voting system. A VVPAT is intended as an independent verification system for voting machines designed to allow ...

(VVPAT) along with EVMs was used in 1 assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh elections. There were over 47 million voters were eligible to exercise their Right to Franchise. Polling for the 230-member

assembly Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...

began at 0800 hours IST and continued till 1700 hours, baring three Naxal-affected seats of Baihar, Paraswada and Lanjhi in

Balaghat district Balaghat district is a district of Madhya Pradesh state in Central India. The town of Balaghat serves as its administrative headquarters. Balaghat is known for its tile factories, rice mills and forests. History At the beginning of the 18th cent ...

where it ended at 1500 hours. Polling started with a brisk voter turnout reaching only 18% till 1100 hours, however, turnout increased significantly after mid-day and reached 71% by the evening, surpassing the earlier 69.08% turnout recorded during

elections, making it the highest recorded voter turnout in

Results

Counting of votes started on December 8, 2013 at 0800 hours IST which continued till later part of the evening.

emerged as the winner with 165 seats followed by

and BSP with 58 and 4 seats respectively. 3 Independent MLAs also won the polls.

!colspan=10, , - ! colspan="2" rowspan="2" , Parties and coalitions ! colspan="3" , Popular vote ! colspan="3" , Seats , - ! Votes !! % !! ± pp!!Contested!! Won !! +/− , -style="text-align:right" , , style="text-align:left;" ,

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the List of ruling p ...

(BJP), , 15,191,335 , 44.88, , , 230, , 165 , , , -style="text-align:right" , , style="text-align:left;" ,

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 ...

(INC), , 12,315,253 , 36.38, , , 229, , 58 , , , -style="text-align:right" , , style="text-align:left;" ,

Bahujan Samaj Party The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is a national level political party in India that was formed to represent Bahujans (literally means "community in majority"), referring to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes (OBC), a ...

(BSP), , 2,128,333 , 6.29, , , 227, , 4 , , 3 , -style="text-align:right" , , style="text-align:left;" , Independents (IND), , 1,820,251 , 5.38, , , 1096, , 3 , , , -style="text-align:right" , style="text-align:left;" colspan="2" ,

None of the Above "None of the above" (NOTA), or none for short, also known as "against all" or a "scratch" vote, is a ballot option in some jurisdictions or organizations, designed to allow the voter to indicate disapproval of the candidates in a voting syst ...

(NOTA) , 643,171 , 1.90 , 1.9 , colspan="3" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" , , - , - class="unsortable" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" ! colspan="8" , , -style="text-align:right" , colspan="2" style="text-align:left; " , Total , 33,852,504 , 100.00 , style="background-color:#E9E9E9" , , 2813 , 230 , ± , - ! colspan="8" , , -style="text-align:right" , colspan="2" style="text-align:left; " , Valid votes , 33,852,504 , 99.86 , colspan="5" rowspan="5" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" , , -style="text-align:right" , colspan="2" style="text-align:left; " , Invalid votes , 47,451 , 0.14 , -style="text-align:right" , colspan="2" style="text-align:left; " , Votes cast / turnout , 33,900,955 , 72.69 , -style="text-align:right" , colspan="2" style="text-align:left; " , Abstentions , 12,735,833 , 27.31 , -style="text-align:right" , colspan="2" style="text-align:left; " , Registered voters , 46,636,788 , colspan="1" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" , , - ! colspan="9" , , - , colspan="9" style="text-align:left; " , Source: Election Commission of India

Constituency-wise results

*Dadu died in a car accident on 9 June 2016 Manju Rajrenda Dadu was subsequently elected to fill the vacancy.

References

{{Indian elections 2013 State Assembly elections in India State Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh 2010s in Madhya Pradesh