Assembly elections 2023: Top 15 leaders to watch out for

The Election Commission announced that the Rajasthan assembly election will be held in a single phase, with all 200 seats going to polls on November 23.

Congress’s Ashok Gehlot, the incumbent chief minister of Rajasthan, won the previous elections defeating BJP’s Shambhu Singh Khetasar in the Sardarpura constituency by a margin of 45,597 votes. He has been fielded from the same constituency in the upcoming 2023 elections.

Sachin Pilot has been fielded from his traditional constituency Tonk by Congress for the upcoming 2023 elections after a truce between him and Rajasthan CM Gehlot. Pilot had won from Tonk in the 2018 assembly elections with a margin of 54,179 votes.

Former chief minister of Rajasthan and prominent BJP leader Vasundhara Raje will be contesting from Jhalrapatan in the upcoming elections, which has traditionally been her stronghold. She had defeated Manvendra Singh from Congress with a margin of 34,980 votes in the 2018 assembly polls.

All 230 legislative assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh will go to polls on November 17, 2023. The current government is the state is led by the BJP.

Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the current chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and the state's longest-serving CM, has been nominated as the candidate from the Budhni constituency. Chouhan has held the position of MLA in Budhni since 2006.

The Congress party has nominated former chief minister Kamal Nath as its candidate from the Chhindwara constituency. Nath has won nine times from the Chhindwara Lok Sabha constituency in Madhya Pradesh. In May 2018, he assumed the role of president of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee and became the chief minister of the state for a brief time period.

The Union minister for agriculture and farmers' welfare in India Narendra Tomar will be contesting the 2023 assembly elections from the Dimni constituency. The BJP is optimistic that Tomar, a former Madhya Pradesh government minister and state party president, will play a pivotal role in improving the party's electoral prospects in the state.

​Chhattisgarh assembly election will be held in two phases. While the first phase of the election will be held on November 7th, the second phase will be on November 17th. The counting of votes will be done on December 3rd.

The ruling party in the state Congress has selected chief minister Bhupesh Baghel as its candidate for the Patan constituency where he will be up against his distant nephew, Vijay Baghel who is running on the BJP ticket. Bhupesh Baghel has been a representative of the Patan constituency in the legislative assembly since 2013.

BJP’s veteran MLA, who has been elected six times, has once again been chosen as a candidate for the Rajnandgaon constituency, the role he has held since 2008. Raman Singh currently holds the position of national vice president within the BJP since 2019. He served as the second and longest-serving chief minister of Chhattisgarh, with his tenure lasting for 15-years spanning from 2003 to 2018.

Arun Sao, the current state unit chief of the BJP, has been nominated as a candidate for the Lormi constituency. Sao, who has been overseeing the BJP's activities in Chhattisgarh since August last year, is presently serving as Lok Sabha MP from the Bilaspur constituency.

The elections in the southern state will be held on November 30. The notification for the elections will be issued on November 10 and the last date for filing nomination papers will be November 13, 2023.

K Chandrashekar Rao, the chief minister of Telangana and the leader of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, will be contesting the forthcoming state assembly election from two constituencies: Gajwel and Kamareddy. He has held the position of Telangana's chief minister since 2014, the year in which the state was formed. He presently represents the Gajwel constituency and is renowned for his role in the Telangana movement.

BJP revoked the suspension of MLA T Raja Singh and declared him as their candidate for the Goshamahal assembly seat, the same constituency he won in 2018. Singh had previously faced suspension due to contentious comments he made about the Prophet in response to the BRS government permitting stand-up comedian Munawar Faruqui to perform in Hyderabad in August 2022.

Bandi Sanjay Kumar, member of parliament representing the Bharatiya Janata Party will contest the Karimnagar assembly constituency in the upcoming Telangana assembly elections. Since 2019, Bandi Sanjay has been serving as the MP for the Karimnagar constituency. He has previously held the position of state president for the BJP in Telangana.

The Election Commission (EC) on Monday announced that the Mizoram assembly election will be held on November 7th.The Mizoram assembly election will be held in single phase.

Zoramthanga will be contesting from the Aizawl East – I constituency in the upcoming elections, the constituency he had won in the 2018 assembly elections. He has been serving as the chief minister of Mizoram since 2018 and previously from 1998 to 2008. He also serves as the President of the ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) party.

K Beichhua, a former minister who was removed from the MNF earlier this year due to allegations of ‘anti-party activities’ will now be running as a BJP candidate for the Siaha constituency. In the past, he served as a minister of state in the Mizoram government, overseeing the social welfare, excise & narcotics and sericulture departments.

Lalrinliana Sailo, the ex-speaker of the Mizoram legislative assembly, will run as a candidate from the Mamit constituency. He was elected as a candidate of the Mizo National Front, representing the Chalfilh constituency but joined Bharatiya Janata Party in October 2023.