Although there are a total of 12 candidates in fray, the main fight is between Devendra Sadho of Congress and Rajkumar Mev of the BJP.
Devendra's sister Vijaylaxmi had won from the constituency in 2008 Assembly polls when she had defeated Mev by a narrow margin of 673 votes.
The byelection was necessitated after Vijaylaxmi resigned from the seat on being elected to the Rajya Sabha.
Madhya Pradesh BJP president Prabhat Jha had said he was strongly against the idea of MLAs resigning from their seats after getting elected to Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha.
Jha said any MLA who does so betrays the faith of the electorate which had chosen him to represent it in the state Assembly.
Jha expressed confidence that his party would win from Maheshwar just as it had won from Sonkatch after its member, Sajjan Singh Verma had resigned his seat on being elected to the Rajya Sabha. (More)