Madhya Pradesh political turmoil: How the numbers stack up in Assembly

Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath appeared confident on Tuesday, claiming there is nothing to worry about as the party will prove its majority in the assembly and his government will complete its term.

The resignation of 22 Congress MLAs, believed to be loyalists of Jyotiraditya Scindia, has put Chief Minister Kamal Nath-led in Madhya Pradesh in a serious crisis and it highly unlikely that the Congress government would be able to survive this big jolt.

Scindia, who was out of reach of Congress leaders since Monday (March 9), resigned from the Congress on Tuesday (March 10) minutes after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi. Speculations are rife that Scindia would join the BJP on Wednesday (March 11) in the presence of senior BJP leaders.

For his part, CM Kamal Nath appeared confident on Tuesday, claiming there is nothing to worry about as the party will prove its majority in the assembly and his government will complete its term.

Here's how numbers stack up in Madhya Pradesh Assembly:

The Madhya Pradesh assembly has a strength of 230 members but two seats are presently vacant due to the demise of two MLAs. The effective strength of Madhya Pradesh Assembly is now 228 and the magic number required to form the government is 115.

Of the 228 MLAs:

Congress has: 114 MLAs
BJP has: 109 MLAs
BSP has: 2 MLAs
Samajwadi Party has: 1 MLA
Independents have: 4 MLAs

The Congress alone does not enjoy a majority in the Madhya Pradesh assembly and has been in power for the last 15 months with the support of the BSP and SP MLAs, taking its tally to 119.

But if the resignation of the 22 Congress MLAs, who resigned on Tuesday, is accepted by Speaker NP Prajapati, the overall strength of the assembly will come down to 206, and the magic number required to form the government will come down to 104.

In that scenario, the Congress would be left with only 92 MLAs out of its own, which will allow the BJP to come to power as it has around 109 MLAs in the state assembly.