MP Assembly polls: Congress likely to end 15-year BJP rule, predicts ABP survey

New Delhi, Oct 6: The Congress party will register a victory in the upcoming assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, predicted a survey conducted by ABP News survey.

The ABP-CVoter survey predicted that the Congress party would win the majority by a huge margin in all the three poll-bound states. The grand old party is predicted to win 112, BJP to win 108 out of 230 seats in Madhya Pradesh. BJP's vote share is 41.5% while 42.2% is of the Congress.

The Congress has a big challenge as Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan has established himself firmly in the saddle. The saffron party's main USP for elections is Hindutva and the BJP has grown in the past three decades by using its Hindu card.

Chauhan had even placated Hindu mahants by granting six of them status as ministers of state after they threatened to launch a yatra alleging corruption in his government.

To counter this hardline Hindutva, the Congress in Madhya Pradesh is employing a blatant Hindu card. Look at the way the state leaders have been trying to project themselves as devotees of various gods. PCC President Kamal Nath claims himself to be a Hanuman-bhakt and has erected a 110-feet Hanuman statue in his constituency.

Earlier in the day, Akhilesh Yadav said he would consult the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, as he has "waited too long" for the Congress.

"We have waited too long for the Congress. How much longer should we wait? We will now consult the Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP), with which we had an alliance, and the BSP for the coming assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh," Yadav was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

BSP cheif Mayawati gave a shocker to the Congress as she ruled out any alliance with the party in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Last month, she had ditched the party in Chhattisgarh.

Several opinion polls,i ncluding CSDS-Lokniti (May) and ABP-C-voter (July,) have predicted that the party is ahead of BJP in view of the severe anti-incumbency.

The term for the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly expires on January 2, 2019.