Congress Returns, Renamed
What happened
The party that had swept to power only a few years earlier was itself voted out, replaced by a reorganized Congress.
The Indian National Congress (I) took charge of the state assembly this time.
It won 246 of the assembly's 320 seats — another landslide.
Its closest rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party, won 60 seats.
What changed
It suffered a collapse just as fast, and a reorganized Congress took its place.
Swing data show 162 of the assembly's seats changing hands from the Janata Party alone.
Two of the election's top finishers, BJP, were both winning seats in the state for the first time.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from that election stand out.
The tightest finish was Sehore, Madhya Pradesh, decided by a margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — of just 176.
At the other extreme, the winner in Chandrapur, Madhya Pradesh took a margin of 74.5% of the vote.
Turnout — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot — peaked in Manawar, Madhya Pradesh, at 72.7%.
The biggest electorate of any single seat was in Bhopal South, Madhya Pradesh, with 1,32,192 registered voters.
The backdrop
INC(I)'s name pointed to a split within Congress politics nationally.
It contested this election as INC(I), one of several Congress-descended parties.