Bhopal: With the goal of winning more than 200 seats in the 230-member House, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is currently in power in Madhya Pradesh, has created the slogan "Abki baar, 200 paar" in light of its spectacular success in Gujarat.
In the elections that are scheduled for the end of 2023, the saffron party, which has been in power in Madhya Pradesh for nearly 20 years, also hopes to receive 51% of the vote.
"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 election, 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 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, PTI reported.
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 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.