Notification issued for Madhya Pradesh assembly polls; process of filing nominations begins

BHOPAL: The process of filing of nominations for the next month's Madhya Pradesh assembly elections began on Saturday with the issuance of notification for the polls, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer said here.

The notification was issued this morning, it said. Assembly elections in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled state will be held in a single phase on November 17, and the counting of votes will take place on December 3.

Nominations for the elections to the 230-member state assembly can be filed from October 21 to October 30, while the scrutiny will be held on October 31, officials said. The candidates can withdraw their nominations till November 2, they said.

Over 5.60 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the state this time. Poll officials said that of the total 5,60,60,925 voters, 2,88,25,607 are male and 2,72,33,945 female, and 1,373 others belong to the third gender. The total number of service voters in the centrally-located state stood at 75,303, of whom 73,020 are men and 2,284 are women, taking the total number of voters to 5,61,36,229, they said.

The number of senior citizen voters stood at 6,53,640. The number of 'divyang' voters is 5,05,146, while 99 are NRI voters. Though the total count of voters, including service voters, is 5,61,36,229, the focus of political parties remains on those currently living in the state and that figure stands at 5,60,60,925, according to the poll officials.

After addition and deletion of names, a total of 16,83,790 voters were added to the electoral rolls, they said. The age-wise break-up of voters is; 18-19 years (22,36,564), 20-29 (1,41,76,780), 30-39 (1,45,03,508), 40-49 (1,06,97,673), 50-59 (74,85,436), 60-69 (43,45,064), 70-79 (19,72,260), 80+ (6,53,640), thus taking the total number of voters to 5,60,60,925, the officials said.

At 42, the lowest number of voters are registered at booth number 111 in Balaghat district's Sonevani forest village. In the 2018 assembly polls, a maximum turnout of 89.13 per cent was recorded in Ratlam district's Sailana constituency, while the Jobat segment in Alirajpur district witnessed the lowest turnout at 52.84 per cent, the officials said.

At 407, the Lakhnadoun assembly seat in Seoni district has the maximum number of polling booths, while the Indore-3 assembly constituency has the lowest number of polling booths at 193, the officials added. The Congress has announced the names on 229 seats, while the ruling BJP has so far declared its candidates on 136 seats.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are also contesting the polls. In the 2018 MP assembly polls, the Congress won 114 seats in the 230-member House, while the BJP bagged 109 seats. The Congress formed a coalition government under Kamal Nath with the support of the SP, the BSP and independent candidates.

The Nath government, however, collapsed after 15 months when a section of Congress MLAs, most of them loyal to Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, quit and joined the BJP. The saffron party returned to power in March 2020 with Shivraj Singh Chouhan as chief minister once again.
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