Elections To 9 States In 2023 Will Set The Tone For 2024 Lok Sabha Big Battle

The elections to the nine states will give us an inkling if BJP manages to hold sway among voters ahead of the big battle in 2024 or if the Opposition, led by the Congress, upsets its applecart.

The year 2023 promises to be an action-packed year in the political space with elections scheduled to be held in nine states

The year 2023 promises to be an action-packed year in the political space with elections scheduled to be held in nine states, including the Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Telangana and Karnataka in the south. Four Northeast states — Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Mizoram — will also go to polls while it remains to be seen if the Centre decides to hold the first election in Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.

The elections to the nine states will give us an inkling if BJP manages to hold sway among voters ahead of the big battle in 2024 or if the Opposition, led by the Congress, upsets its applecart.

Among the nine states, the Congress is in power in just two — Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Even though the recent Himachal Pradesh poll win in 2022 has galvanised the party, it will be an uphill task for the Congress to retain the two states and put up a fight against the BJP in the Northeast.

These Are The States Going To Polls In 2023

1) Rajasthan

Plagued by infighting between respective factions led by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot, the Congress has its task cut out in Rajasthan. The only solace for the Congress is that the state BJP is also grappling with factionalism within the party between former CM Vasundhara Raje and Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.

Recently, Gehlot claimed that there was no anti-incumbency in the state and that there cannot be a bigger achievement than this. However, the Congress needs to be aware of the fact that Rajasthan has been alternating between the grand old party and the BJP governments for three decades now.

In the 2018 Assembly election, the Congress wrested power from the Raje-led BJP government, becoming the single largest party with 100 seats in the 200-member assembly. The BJP secured only 73 seats.

2) Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh is one of the two states (other being Karnataka) where the BJP currently has a government but had suffered a setback in the previous assembly elections. In 2018, the Congress surprisingly ousted the BJP from power and Kamal Nath became the CM.

But the victory was short-lived as 22 MLAs of the Congress, including senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, resigned from the party and joined the BJP. After this, BJP's Shivraj Singh Chouhan returned as the CM on March 23, 2020.

In the 2018 MP elections, the BJP won just 109 seats, while the Congress bagged 114 seats in the 230-member assembly. The BJP currently has 127 members and the Congress 96.

Speculation is also rife that the BJP leadership may opt for a Gujarat-like shake-up in Madhya Pradesh and replace the entire Cabinet to overcome anti-incumbency. The BJP has been in power in MP for almost 20 years, except the 18-month regime of the Congress in 2018-2019.

3) Chhattisgarh

Chhattisgarh is one state where the BJP may find it tough to dislodge the Congress due to the vast welfare schemes launched by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel for the tribal population and his work in strengthening the rural economy.

Besides making several major changes in the BJP state leadership, appointing Narayan Chandel as Leader of the Opposition and making Arun Sao state president, the saffron party has gone all out in highlighting the alleged irregularities committed during the tenure of the Congress government. In 2022, Income Tax raids were carried out on individuals and officials allegedly close to Baghel.

In 2018, the Congress secured a massive victory by winning 68 seats out of 90 in the state while the BJP secured 15. Since then, the Congress has won convincingly in five bypolls — Bhanupratappur, Dantewada, Chitrakot, Marwahi and Khairagarh. It remains to be seen if these victories are an indication of the Congress's fortunes in 2023.

4) Karnataka

Known as the BJP's gateway into south India, Karnataka will be keenly watched as it heads to elections in 2023 amid a raging border row with Maharashtra under the leadership of Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, who replaced Lingayat strongman Yeddiyurapa on

the top post in 2021.

For the Congress, it will be a prestige fight as Karnataka is the home state of its newly elected president Mallikarjun Kharge. However, the party is battling internal factionalism between two groups led by Leader of Opposition and former chief minister Siddaramaiah and state party chief DK Shivakumar.

In the 2018 election, no party got a majority in the 224-member assembly. Political maneuvering by the BJP saw Yeddyurappa being sworn in as the CM but he resigned after not being able to cobble up a majority. After this, the Congress and the JD(S) together formed the government, with HD Kumarasamy becoming the CM.

However, 14 months later, 16 MLAs from the ruling coalition resigned, throwing the Congress-JD(S) government into jeopardy. The coalition lost the majority and Kumarasamy resigned after losing the trust vote on July 23, 2019. On July 26, 2019, Yeddiyurapa took oath as the CM once again, only to be replaced by Bommai.

5) Telangana

Aiming to go national with the launch of Bharat Rashtra Samiti in 2022, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will look to secure a hat-trick of wins in Telangana.

Political temperatures have been soaring in Telangana amid allegations of poaching attempt by BJP to lure some ruling party MLAs into its fold and the questioning of KCR's daughter K Kavitha by the CBI in the Delhi excise policy scam.

BJP's top leadership, including Home Minister Amit Shah and party president JP Nadda, have made several visits to Telangana in the past one year. The BJP also held its national executive in Hyderabad in July 2022, and got Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address a massive public meeting, highlighting the importance of the state for the party.

In 2018, K Chandrashekar Rao secured a landslide victory by winning 87 of the 119 seats. The party upped its tally from 63 in 2014. The BJP could bag just one seat.

This time, the BJP may pose a tough challenge to the BRS as indicated in the recently concluded Munugode bypoll. Even though the BRS defeated the BJP, the margin was only 10,000 votes.

6) Northeastern States

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already sounded the poll bugle in the Northeast during his recent visit to Meghalaya and Tripura to inaugurate a slew of projects worth Rs 6,800 crore. Nagaland and Mizoram are also going to polls.

Tripura

The most interesting battle will be in Tripura, where a four-cornered fight is on the cards between BJP, Congress, the Left and Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress. Similar to its election strategy in Karnataka and Gujarat, the BJP has changed the CM face in Tripura as well, replacing Biplab Deb with Manik Saha, to beat anti-incumbency.

In 2018, the BJP romped home with 35 seats, unseating Manik Sarkar of the CPI(M) who had been the CM for almost 20 years.

Meghalaya

In Meghalaya, the Congress had emerged the largest party in the 2018 assembly election with 21 seats in the 60-member Assembly. However, it was short of the halfway mark. Tactical maneuvering by the BJP saw the party team up with the National People's Party (NPP) to form the government. Conrad Sangma was made the chief minister.

Nagaland

The demand for a separate state 'Frontier Nagaland' by carving out 16 districts by seven tribal groups is likely to play a crucial role in the upcoming Nagaland election. The Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP)-BJP alliance is in power in Nagaland.

In the 2018 Assembly election, NPF emerged as the single largest party, winning 26 seats. However, the NDPP-BJP alliance cornered 30 seats and garnered the support of two NPP MLAs, one JD(U) MLA and an Independent to form the government.

Mizoram

In Mizoram, the Mizo National Front, which is part of both the NDA at Centre and the BJP-led NEDA in the region, looks set to return to power again. In the 2018 polls, MNF won 26 out of the 40 seats while the Congress could win only 5 seats. The BJP also opened its account in the state for the first time.