The closest finish in years
What happened
The election produced a hung house — a result where no single party wins enough seats to govern alone.
Indian National Congress finished first with 114 seats to the Bharatiya Janata Party's 109, just short of a majority.
Its share of the vote was even higher than the winner's, 41.0% against 40.9%.
What changed
A lot of seats changed hands beneath the close finish.
120 of the state's 230 seats flipped to a different party than before.
The single biggest shift ran from the BJP to the INC: 80 seats moved that way.
The BJP's run in office ended here, even though the incoming winner fell just short of a majority.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from the results stand out.
The tightest race was Gwalior South, Madhya Pradesh, decided by a margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — of just 121 votes.
The widest margin of the night was in Dabara, Madhya Pradesh, where the winner finished 38.4% of the vote clear of the runner-up.
Turnout — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot — was highest in Sailana, Madhya Pradesh, at 89.0%.
It was lowest in Jobat, Madhya Pradesh, at 52.7%.
The backdrop
The governing arrangement that followed this election did not last its full term.
In March 2020, Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia resigned from the party and 22 Congress MLAs defected, mostly to the BJP. Chief Minister Kamal Nath, whose Congress-led government had governed since December 2018, resigned on 20 March 2020, and Shivraj Singh Chouhan was sworn in as chief minister on 23 March 2020.