State / UT
Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh is a state of the Indian Union formed on 1 November 1956 under the States Reorganisation Act, assembled from Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh, Bhopal State and the Sironj subdivision, with Bhopal as its capital. It is India's second-largest state by area at 308,252 sq km and its fifth-most populous, with roughly 72.6 million people at the 2011 Census, sending 29 members to the Lok Sabha and 11 to the Rajya Sabha. Its legislature is the unicameral 230-seat Vidhan Sabha at Bhopal. What makes it structurally distinctive is scale without coastline: a landlocked, resource-bearing, agriculture-weighted state whose assembly reserves 47 seats for Scheduled Tribes — the largest tribal reservation block in any Indian legislature — and which lost roughly a third of its territory and its mineral-industrial south when Chhattisgarh was carved out in 2000.
Updated
- Capital
- Bhopal
- Formed
- 1 November 1956 (States Reorganisation Act, 1956)
- Legislature
- Unicameral — Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha, 230 seats (35 SC, 47 ST reserved)
- Lok Sabha seats
- 29
- Rajya Sabha seats
- 11
- Population (2011 Census)
- ~72.6 million (fifth-most populous state)
- Area
- 308,252 sq km (second-largest state)
- Districts
- 55, in 10 divisions
- GSDP (2025-26 BE)
- Rs 16,94,477 crore
Role
Madhya Pradesh is the Republic’s geographic middle and one of its largest administrative units: second by area, fifth by population, and governed through a single 230-seat Vidhan Sabha at Bhopal that has never had an upper chamber. Within the federal division of powers it runs the standard State List machinery — police and prisons, land revenue, agriculture and irrigation, public health, school education — across 55 districts organised into 10 divisions. Its weight in the Union is substantial but asymmetric: 29 Lok Sabha seats and 11 Rajya Sabha seats give it real numbers in Parliament, while a GSDP projected at about Rs 16.9 lakh crore for 2025-26 leaves it mid-table among states in output and well down the table in per-capita terms. The state is landlocked, agriculture-weighted, and dependent on the Union both for its share of central taxes and for the borrowing headroom that funds a fiscal deficit budgeted at 4.7% of GSDP.
Two structural features define it. The first is what the 2000 reorganisation did: the Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Act took away the south-eastern districts that became Chhattisgarh, along with 90 assembly seats, 11 Lok Sabha seats and 5 Rajya Sabha seats, and with them much of undivided MP’s mineral and heavy-industrial base — leaving the residual state larger in area and population but structurally more agrarian than the entity that existed before 1 November 2000. The second is its tribal composition. Forty-seven of the 230 assembly constituencies are reserved for Scheduled Tribes and 35 for Scheduled Castes, meaning more than a third of the legislature is elected from reserved seats; the ST block is the largest in any Indian assembly, and it makes Fifth Schedule administration, forest rights and land questions constitutive of state politics rather than peripheral to them. The state also carries the longest-running institutional consequence of an industrial accident in India: the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, whose remediation, compensation and site-liability questions have outlived every government since. Water is the other continuing federal thread — the Ken-Betwa link, planned jointly by the Union and the governments of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, would inundate part of the Panna Tiger Reserve, setting an inter-state water transfer against the state’s own conservation estate.
Desk maintained by IndiaStand editorial cycles. Officeholders are transient; this dossier tracks the institution.
Timeline since 1947
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Madhya Pradesh constituted under the States Reorganisation Act
Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh, Bhopal State and the Sironj subdivision were merged into a new Madhya Pradesh with Bhopal as capital; the Marathi-speaking Vidarbha districts of the old Central Provinces and Berar went to Bombay State. The state was assembled by language and administrative convenience rather than around a single historic core.
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First Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha constituted
The legislature was constituted as a single chamber and has remained unicameral since — no legislative council was ever created. It sits at Vidhan Bhavan on Arera Hill, Bhopal.
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Bhopal gas disaster
The release of methyl isocyanate and other gases from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in the state capital killed thousands; official records cite roughly 3,787-4,000 deaths, with higher estimates when later medical complications are counted. Site remediation and compensation remained matters of litigation for decades, and the disaster permanently shaped the state's industrial-regulation and relief apparatus.
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Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Act enacted
Parliament passed the Act on 25 August 2000, providing for the bifurcation of the state.
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Chhattisgarh carved out; Madhya Pradesh reduced to its present boundaries
On the state's own 44th foundation day, its south-eastern districts became Chhattisgarh, India's 26th state. Representation was split: Lok Sabha 40 to 29 (MP) and 11 (Chhattisgarh); Rajya Sabha 16 to 11 and 5; the assembly 320 to 230 and 90. A separate Chhattisgarh High Court was established. Madhya Pradesh retained the larger landmass and population but lost a heavily mineral- and industry-bearing region.
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Census records the post-bifurcation state at roughly 72.6 million
The 2011 Census put Madhya Pradesh fifth among states by population while it remained second by area — a combination that gives it low density relative to its size and a heavily rural, agriculture-dependent settlement pattern.
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Government changes mid-term after mass resignations from the assembly
Twenty-two members elected on the Congress ticket in the 2018 election resigned from the Vidhan Sabha and joined the BJP, collapsing the sitting government and returning the BJP to office without an election. The episode is a reference case in Indian debates on the anti-defection law, which does not bar resignation followed by re-election.
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16th Vidhan Sabha elected
Polling for all 230 seats was held on 17 November 2023 with results on 3 December. The BJP won 163 seats on 48.62% of the vote against the Congress's 66 seats on 40.45%; turnout was 77.74%, up 2.11 points on 2018. The current Chief Minister was chosen by the legislature party after the result rather than projected before it.
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2025-26 budget: Rs 3.75 lakh crore expenditure, 4.7% fiscal deficit
The state budgeted total expenditure of Rs 3,75,335 crore excluding debt repayment, up 14% on revised estimates, against a projected GSDP of Rs 16,94,477 crore. Receipts excluding borrowings were put at Rs 2,96,435 crore and the fiscal deficit target at 4.7% of GSDP, above the 4.2% revised estimate for 2024-25 — a widening gap between what the state spends and what it raises.
Frequently asked
- What is Madhya Pradesh?
- Madhya Pradesh is a state of the Indian Union formed on 1 November 1956 under the States Reorganisation Act, assembled from Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh, Bhopal State and the Sironj subdivision, with Bhopal as its capital. It is India's second-largest state by area at 308,252 sq km and its fifth-most populous, with roughly 72.6 million people at the 2011 Census, sending 29 members to the Lok Sabha and 11 to the Rajya Sabha. Its legislature is the unicameral 230-seat Vidhan Sabha at Bhopal. What makes it structurally distinctive is scale without coastline: a landlocked, resource-bearing, agriculture-weighted state whose assembly reserves 47 seats for Scheduled Tribes — the largest tribal reservation block in any Indian legislature — and which lost roughly a third of its territory and its mineral-industrial south when Chhattisgarh was carved out in 2000.
- When was Madhya Pradesh established?
- Madhya Pradesh was established 1956-11-01.
- What does Madhya Pradesh do?
- Its remit covers Law and order, police and prisons across 55 districts in 10 divisions, Land revenue, land records and tenancy under the State List, Agriculture, irrigation and the state's wheat and soybean procurement machinery, Public health, hospitals and school education, Forests and wildlife — the largest forest estate of any Indian state, administered jointly under the Concurrent List, Scheduled Tribe administration, including Fifth Schedule areas and 47 ST-reserved assembly constituencies, State finances: a budget of roughly Rs 3.75 lakh crore against a GSDP of about Rs 16.9 lakh crore (2025-26).
- What is the latest on Madhya Pradesh?
- As of 2026-07-17: 2025-26 budget: Rs 3.75 lakh crore expenditure, 4.7% fiscal deficit. The state budgeted total expenditure of Rs 3,75,335 crore excluding debt repayment, up 14% on revised estimates, against a projected GSDP of Rs 16,94,477 crore. Receipts excluding borrowings were put at Rs 2,96,435 crore and the fiscal deficit target at 4.7% of GSDP, above the 4.2% revised estimate for 2024-25 — a widening gap between what the state spends and what it raises.
Official sources
The government's own pages for this institution — go straight to the primary.
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State government's central portal — departments, schemes, e-services, district directory.
www.mp.gov.in/
- Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha legislation
The 230-seat unicameral legislature: members, business, bills, committees.
mpvidhansabha.nic.in/
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ECI's state machinery — rolls, constituencies, results for the 230 ACs and 29 PCs.
ceomadhyapradesh.nic.in/
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Independent read of state finances: GSDP, expenditure, fiscal deficit.
prsindia.org/budgets/states/madhya-pradesh-budget-analysis-2
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2011 Census population, density, literacy, SC/ST composition.
censusindia.gov.in/