Bhopal, Nov 15 (UNI) The din and bustle of Assembly election campaigning died down at 6 p.m. on Wednesday in Madhya Pradesh after reaching a feverish pitch for the formation of the state’s 16th Vidhan Sabha.
The voting for all 230 constituencies of the state will be held on Friday.
Hereafter, candidates will be permitted to woo voters by going door-to-door.
During the past few days, the ruling BJP, the principal-opposition Congress and other political parties invested every ounce of their respective energies in an attempt to sway the populace.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself led the saffron charge by addressing approximately a dozen public meetings. He was seconded by Union Home Affairs and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah and BJP President Jagat Prakash Nadda.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, erstwhile party head Rahul Gandhi and General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and Samajwadi Party chief Akshilesh Ydav were also on the campaign trail.
The polling on Friday will take place from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. barring certain polling centres in Leftwing extremism-affected Balaghat, Dindori and Mandla districts where voting will cease at 3 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer Anupam Rajan told UNI that preparations are complete for the D-Day.
An electorate exceeding 5.60 crore – including more than 2.71 crore women and 1,292 of the third gender – is eligible to participate in the democratic exercise in over 65,500 polling centres to decide the fortunes of 2,533 nominees including 252 females and one member of the third gender.
The BJP and the Congress have fielded their representatives for all seats whereas other figures include Bahujan Samaj Party 181, Samajwadi Party 71 and 1,166 independents.
Among the prominent contestants are Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Budhni), Congress state head and former CM Kamal Nath (Chhindwara), Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Narendra Singh Tomar (Dimani), Union Minister of State for Jal Shakti and Food-Processing Industries Prahalad Singh Patel (Narsinghpur), Union MoS for Steel and Rural Development Faggansingh Kulaste (Niwas) and BJP Gen Secy Kailash Vijayvargiya (Indore).
Counting is slated for December 3.
In the 2018 election, the Congress emerged as the single-largest entity with 114 seats and constituted a coalition government that proved to be short-lived owing to the exit in March 2020 of MLAs loyal to then Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, who revolted and the BJP formed the government. Later, in the year, most of the Scindia supporters emerged victorious on BJP tickets in by-polls.
