The Maharashtra Assembly polls will be held on November 20, with the ruling BJP-led Mahayuti alliance vying to retain power, while the opposition’s Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) hopes for a strong comeback. Voting for the 288 seats will begin at 7 AM and end at 6 PM. The counting of votes will be done on November 23.
Simultaneously, polls will also be held in 38 remaining Assembly seats in Jharkhand in its second and final phase. The polling will begin at 7 AM and will continue till 5 PM barring 31 booths where it will end at 4 PM.
On Wednesday, bypolls will also be held in 15 assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand. 90 candidates are in the fray in these seats with the maximum of 14 in Ghaziabad. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Maharashtra Polls: Key Parties And Campaigns
Several prominent leaders participated in the intense campaigning across the state ahead of the polls with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, and several other Union ministers joining their Maharashtra units to garner votes for their camps.
The Mahayuti alliance, comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde led Shiv Sena, and the Nationalist Congress Party led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, is focusing on its popular schemes such as “Majhi Ladki Bahin” for women in a bid to retain power in the state.
However, Yogi Adityanath’s “Batenge toh katenge” and PM’s “Ek hai toh safe hai” slogans created quite a stir ahead of the polls prompting the Opposition to slam the ruling alliance for polarising voters on the basis of religion.
The opposition’s Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition, comprises of the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) led by former CM Uddhav Thackeray, and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar). While the MVA and several Mahayuti leaders, inluding Ajit Pawar, slammed the ‘batenge toh katenge” slogan, Devendra Fadnavis stressed that it was a call for unity and hit back at the opposition for supporting “vote jihad”.
The MVA countered the ruling Mahayuti’s rhetoric by stressing on issues like caste-based census, protection of the Constitution, and social justice. It also aimed to appeal to voters who felt neglected by the government. The opposition leaders also claimed that the ruling government took away projects from Maharashtra and gave them to Gujarat.t
The BJP on Monday launched a new ad campaign targeting the MVA. It urged people to “Say No to Congress.” and highlighted various incidents from the past such as the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks and the lynching of sadhus at Palghar.
Key Battles And Constituencies In Maharashtra
The high stakes battles in the state which will have everybody’s attention include Worli, Baramati, Vandre East, Nagpur South West, and Kopri-Pachpakhadi.
In Worli, there will be a three-cornered battle between Shiv Sena’s Milind Deora, Sena UBT’s Aaditya Thackeray. and MNS leder Sandeep Deshpande.
In Baramati, the Pawars will clash once again after the Lok Sabha polls. This time, Sharad Pawar’s grandnephew Yugendra is pitted against Deputy CM Ajit Pawar. Baramati is traditionally a stronghold of the NCP (SP).
The Vandre East seat will witness a contest between Varun Sardesai and Zeeshan Siddique. Sardesai is Uddhav Thackeray’s nephew, while Siddique is the son of Baba Siddique, who was recently shot dead in Mumbai.
In Nagpur South West, Deputy CM and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis is vying for a fourth consecutive term. He is up against Congress’ Praful Gudadhe.
In Thane’s Kopri-Pachpakhadi seat, CM Eknath Shinde is contesting against Kedar Dighe, who is his political mentor and late Shiv Sena leader Anand Dighe’s nephew.
Maharashtra Elections: Parties And Seat Sharing
The BJP is contesting in 149 seats, while Shiv Sena is in the fray in 81 seats. The Ajit Pawar-led NCP has fielded candidates in 59 constituencies. In MVA, the Congress has fielded the highest number of candidates from 101 seats, followed by Shiv Sena (UBT) 95, and NCP (SP), which has fielded 86 candidates.
Besides these key parties, other smaller parties, including the Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party, and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM), are also contesting the Maharashtra polls, with BSP fielding 237 candidates, SP seven, and AIMIM 17.
This year, a total of 4,136 candidates are contesting elections, which is an up from 3,239 in 2019 Assembly elections. The number of candidates has increased by 28 per cent this time as compared to the 2019 polls.
Among the 4,136 candidates, 2,086 are Independents. Besides them, over 150 rebels are in the fray, who are contesting against their party’s official nominees.
Polling Booths And Voters In Maharashtra
As on October 30, the updated number of registered voters stands at 9,70,25,119. These include 5,00,22,739 male voters, 4,69,96,279 female voters, and 6,101 transgender voters. In addition to this, 6,41,425, PwD (Persons with Disabilities) voters and 1,16,170 service voters from the armed forces will cast ballots.
The Election Commission has set up 1,00,186 polling booths in Maharashtra this time, compared to 2019 polls’ 96,654 booths. This increase is due to the rise in the number of voters.
Around six lakh state government employees will be involved in election-related duties on Wednesday.
Since the code of conduct was enforced on October 15, poll cash and items worth Rs 252.42 crore were seized in enforcement actions across the state that were conducted under the central and state government schemes.
These items included Rs 63.47 crore cash and 34,89,088 litres of liquor valued at Rs 33.73 crore. Additionally, drugs worth Rs 32.67 crore were also confiscated, along with precious metals valued at Rs 83.12 crore. Poll officials also recovered 34,634 pieces of jewellery worth Rs 2.79 crore and 8,79,913 miscellaneous items worth Rs 36.62 crore.
During this time, EC received 2,469 complaints related to violations of the Model Code of Conduct via the C-Vigil app. Out of these, nearly 99.31 per cent complaints, which amount to a total of 2,452 complaints, were promptly resolved.
In view of the MCC, the poll officials also conducted regular check across various helipads in the state at the time of a leader’s departure or arrival. Their choppers and luggage were checked thoroughly to ensure fair play in the polls. This sparked a row in Maharashtra as the exercise did not go down well with Sena UBT’s Uddhav Thackeray. The other leaders whose bags were checked include Amit Shah, Eknath Shinde, Nana Patole, and Nitin Gadkari among others.
Jharkhand Assembly Election 2024
The electoral fate of 528 candidates, including Chief Minister Hemant Soren, his wife Kalpana Soren both (both JMM) and Leader of Opposition Amar Kumar Bauri (BJP) will be decided in the final phase of the Jharkhand Assembly polls tomorrow.
The ruling JMM-led INDIA bloc and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance are up against each other in a fierce battle, the first phase of which was held on November 13. The BJP has fielded candidates in 68 seats while its allies AJSU Party, JD(U), and Lok Janshakti (Ram Vilas) has fielded candidates 10, two, and one seats respectively. In the INDIA bloc, JMM has fielded candidates in 43 seats, Congress 30, RJD 6, and CPI(ML) 4 with friendly fights on a few seats.
A total of 1.23 crore voters including 60.79 lakh women and 147 third gender voters are eligible to vote across 14,218 polling stations on Wednesday. The 528 candidates include 472 men, 55 women, and a third gender person.
Top BJP brass including PM Modi, Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, JP Nadda, and chief ministers of several states addressed campaign rallies, attacking the JMM-led coalition over corruption and infiltration.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, party president Mallikarjun Kharge, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren and his wife and legislator Kalpana Soren campaigned extensively for the INDIA bloc, promising welfare schemes. They also accused the BJP-led Centre of unleashing ED and CBI against the rival parties.
CM Soren-led JMM is vying to retain its power focusing on welfare schemes, while the BJP’s election pitch raised issues of “infiltration from Bangladesh” and corruption.
Out of the 38 constituencies, 18 are situated in the Santhal Pargana region comprising six districts including Godda, Deoghar, Dumka, Jamtara, Sahibganj and Pakur. 28 seats are reserved for ST candidates and nine for SC contestants.
Since the implementation of the MCC, around Rs 200 crore worth of illegal materials and cash have been seized from the state, which is the highest in the recent past. Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) K Ravi Kumar said that 90 cases pertaining to violation of the model code of conduct (MCC) violation were recorded.
“Out of the 38 seats, eight are reserved for scheduled tribes and three for scheduled castes.Of the total 14,218 polling stations, the responsibility of the entire voting process at 239 polling stations will be in the hands of women while 22 booths will be manned by persons with disabilities (PwDs),” the CEO said.
Besides CM Soren and his wife, prominent among the candidates include state BJP president and ex-CM Babulal Marandi, Assembly Speaker Ravindra Nath Mahto (JMM) and BJP ally AJSU Party chief Sudesh Mahto.
Of the SC seats, JMM won 2, BJP 6 and RJD 1 in the 2019 polls. Meanwhile, in the ST reserved seats, JMM was victorious in 19, Congress in 6, BJP 2 and JVM(P) 1.
(With inputs from news agency PTI)
