Ab ki baar 200 paar: MP BJP target for 2023 assembly polls

The BJP, which has been in power in Madhya Pradesh for almost 20 years, also aims to garner 51 per cent votes in the polls that are due by the end of 2023.

New Delhi, Dec 18: Buoyed by the party's resounding victory in Gujarat, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Madhya Pradesh has come up with 'Abki baar, 200 paar' slogan for the next year's Assembly elections, setting the ambitious target of winning more than 200 seats in the 230-member House.

The saffron party, which has been in power in Madhya Pradesh for almost 20 years, also aims to garner 51 per cent votes in the polls that are due by the end of 2023.

"The party is setting the target of bagging 51 per cent vote share and winning more than 200 seats in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls next year," state BJP chief V D Sharma told reporters on Saturday after emerging from the party's executive committee meeting in Katni district of the state.

"Abki baar, 200 paar" (this elections, more than 200 seats), he said, adding that the party had received 53 per cent votes in Gujarat and rewritten history in that state with the landslide victory.

The BJP won 156 seats out of 182 seats in Gujarat, where elections were held on December 1 and 5, and broke the Congress's 1985 record in that state - when Madhavsinh Solanki won 149 seats.

At the meeting, where MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and other leaders were present, the party resolved to win more than 200 seats.

After 15 years in power, the BJP had lost the 2018 Assembly polls in MP, paving the way for the Congress to form a government under the leadership of Kamal Nath with the help of elected independents, MLAs from the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party.

However, a rebellion by nearly two dozen Congress MLAs loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia, a Union minister who is now in the BJP, led to the collapse of the Nath government in March 2020. The BJP subsequently formed its government under the leadership of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

"In the last Assembly polls in MP, the Congress and independent candidates backed by it together won 114 seats, while the BJP had to be content with 107 seats," senior journalist and political analyst Rakesh Dixit told PTI.

"In 2018, the saffron party garnered 41.02 per cent votes, while the Congress managed to cobble up 40.89 per cent votes. The BJP had to sit in the opposition for 15 months until 22 Congress MLAs mostly loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia rebelled, paving the way for the return of the saffron party to power in MP," he added.