Budhni Madhya Pradesh Assembly Election Result 2023: Shivraj Singh Chouhan clears his path, takes lead as per early trends against Congress' Vikram Mastal

Madhya Pradesh Assembly Election Result 2023: CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan has taken an early lead on Budhni seat and is ahead of his closest rival Mahamandleswar Swami Vairagyanand, Samajwadi Party.

Madhya Pradesh may see the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coming back to power after most exit polls earlier this week predicted an advantage for BJP in the central state.  CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan may be looking at getting the top post yet again. Chouhan, who was elected from the Budhni seat in 2018, is the longest-serving CM of Madhya Pradesh.

The central state has remained a BJP bastion for the last two decades, barring 2018 when Congress under Kamal Nath formed the government for a brief 18 months.

The Budhni Assembly constituency comes under the district of Sehore and is one of the 230 Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly constituencies. Budhni has been a BJP stronghold since 1990, when Chouhan entered the state assembly from Budhni for the first time and continued it till 2023.

The voters of the Budhni Assembly segment exercised their constitutional right on November 17, 2023.

According to the Madhya Pradesh Election Commission, the total number of votes in the state is 5,61,36,229, including 75,304 service voters. 2,88,25,607 are male voters, 2,72,33,945 are female voters and the third gender voters are 1373.

Top candidates 2023

Shivraj Singh Chouhan (BJP), Prahalad Chaurasia (GGP), Vikram Mastal Sharma (INC), Abdul Rashed (IND), Brijmohan Dhurve (IND), Chotelal   (IND), Hemraj Pethari (IND), Pramnarayan (IND), Vijay Nandan (IND), and others are the top candidates.

Chouhan was sworn as chief minister for a record fourth time to replace Congress leader Kamal Nath, who had lost the majority owing to the revolt of 22 Congress MLAs led by Jyotiraditya Scindia, who later joined BJP.

This year, Chouhan's closest rival is Congress' Vikram Mastal. Mastal is a TV actor and played Hanuman in the 2008 Ramayan reboot. Mastal was born in Sehore district’s Itarsi village to martial artist Vinod Sharma, who was also in the Congress.

His elder brother Arjun Sharma is also part of the Congress and tried to get a ticket from Budhni in 2018 but lost out to Arun Yadav.

Assembly Election Result 2018

In Vidhansabha elections 2018, Chouhan won with a margin of 29.00%. Chouhan's nearest rival was Congress' Arun Subhashchandra. The margin of victory was: 58,999 votes.

In 2018, there was a tight fight between the Congress and the BJP. At the end of the counting, Congress became the single-largest party with 114 seats, while BJP won 109 seats. The Congress successfully formed a government with the support of 1 Samajwadi Party MLA, 2 BSP MLAs and 4 independent MLAs with Kamal Nath as the CM.

On March 20, 2020, Kamal Nath was forced to resign as 22 sitting MLAs quit the Congress. On March 23, 2020, Shivraj Singh Chouhan returned to power.

Exit polls 2023

Exit polls conducted by India Today-Axis My India, News 24-Chanakya and India TV-CNX predicted a huge victory for the BJP in Madhya Pradesh. As per India Today-Axis My India, the BJP is likely to get 140-162 seats in the 230-member assembly, while the Congress may get something between 68 and 90 seats.

Today’s Chanakya, predicted a massive victory for the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, forecasting that the BJP would get 151 (plus minus 12 seats) and the Congress 74 (plus minus 12 seats).

Also read: Election Result 2023 Live: BJP marches ahead in MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan; Vasundhara Raje leads in Jhalrapatan

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