The Election Commission of India (ECI) will on Monday announce the schedule for assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, and Mizoram, setting the stage for the last major electoral exercise ahead of the 2024 national elections.

The model code of conduct will take effect with the announcement of the schedule. The code governs the conduct of political parties and candidates in the run-up to elections. It bars government functionaries from making any announcements that can influence voters.

In 2018, polls in the five states, which account for roughly 15% of India’s population and have around 200 million voters, were held in four phases between November 12 and December 7. Eighteen constituencies in Left-wing insurgency-hit southern Chhattisgarh voted in the first phase of polls in 2018 and the state’s remaining 72 in the second. Elections to the 230-member Madhya Pradesh assembly were held on November 28, the same day the smallest of the poll-bound states—Mizoram—with 40 assembly seats went to the polls in 2018.

Rajasthan, which has a 200-member assembly, and Telangana (119-member House) went to the polls on December 7 five years back. Early polls were necessitated in Telangana in 2018 after chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao dissolved the assembly in September of that year. Counting of votes was held across all five states and results were declared on December 11, 2018.

Controversy marred the announcement of the poll schedule for the five states in 2018. The ECI’s deferment by over two hours of a press conference to make the announcement triggered criticism. The Congress alleged that the delay was designed to give Prime Minister Narendra Modi a free hand at an election meeting that he was to address in Rajasthan’s Ajmer.

At the meeting, the then chief minister Vasundhara Raje announced a waiver on electricity bills of up to ₹10,000 per annum for farmers just ahead of the imposition of the model code.

The Congress wrested power from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Hindi-speaking heartland— Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh—leading up to the 2019 general elections. TRS, which has since been renamed Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), retained power in Telangana while the Mizo National Front formed the government in Mizoram.

The term of the Mizoram assembly ends on December 17. The terms of the assemblies in the other four states end on different dates in January.

The Congress lost power to BJP in Madhya Pradesh in March 2020 after the resignations of 22 legislators. The BJP has since 2003 been in power (barring 18 months between 2018 and 2020) in the state, where it faces anti-incumbency and infighting. Madhya Pradesh is one of the largest states that sends 29 members to the Lok Sabha.

In May, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the Congress will form the next government in the state and win 150 of the 230 seats. The BJP lost power to Congress in Himachal Pradesh in 2022 and Karnataka in May.

The Congress won Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan polls in 2018 but managed to win only three of the 65 Lok Sabha seats in the three states five months later. It is buoyed by its performance in Karnataka, where the Congress returned to power on the back of an ideological campaign centred on welfare, social justice, and anti-corruption.

Telangana is expected to have a three-cornered contest between the BRS, the BJP, and the Congress. In Rajasthan, where the incumbent has not returned to power since 1985, both Congress and BJP have a problem with leadership.

Chief minister Ashok Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot have openly feuded while BJP’s Raje has had her differences with the party’s leadership.

The Congress is hoping to retain power on the back of the welfarism and Gehlot’s delivery record.