Informist, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024

NEW DELHI – The exit polls on Wednesday hinted at an edge for the incumbent Mahayuti alliance consisting of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Shiv Sena, and the Nationalist Congress Party in a tight contest for 288-member Maharashtra Assembly. The pollsters forecast 125 to 195 seats for the Mahayuti alliance. The Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance of the Congress, the Shiv Sena (Udhhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) would get 85 to 150 seats, the exit polls forecast.

Meanwhile, the Dainik Bhaskar and Lokshahi-Marathi Rudra exit polls predicted a hung assembly in the state. Dainik Bhaskar forecast 125–140 seats for the Mahayuti alliance and 135–150 seats for Maha Vikas Aghadi. Others are likely to get 20–25 seats. Lokshahi-Marathi Rudra predicted 128–142 seats for Mahayuti, 125-140 seats for Maha Vikas Aghadi and 18–23 seats for others. The majority mark in Maharashtra is 145.

The voting across 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra was held on Wednesday and a provisional voter turnout of around 59% was recorded. The counting will be held on Saturday.

The exit polls suggest that welfare schemes like "Ladki Bahin Yojana" have worked for the Mahayuti alliance in the state. It seems that the "Ek hain to safe hain and Batenge to Katenge" narrative by the BJP to consolidate dalits, tribals and other backward classes in the state worked on the ground. The Mahayuti has promised to increase the monthly allowance for women to INR 2,100, waive farm loans, and increase the pension of senior citizens to INR 2,000 from INR 1,500, among other sops.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi's argument that "Samvidhan khatre mein hai" may not stand a chance against the BJP's strategies to woo the voters. The opposition bloc has aggressively raised the issues of Dalits and tribals and projected itself as the saviour of the Constitution. The Maha Vikas Aghadi has also promised its own sops--INR 3,000 monthly allowance for women under the Mahalaxmi scheme, INR 100,000 for girls upon reaching 18 years of age, and so on.

In the Lok Sabha election, the Aghadi alliance won 30 of the state's 48 Lok Sabha seats after Dalits, Muslims, tribals, Marathas, and a chunk of the Other Backward Classes moved to its side. The BJP-led alliance could win only 17 seats. The BJP’s own tally fell to nine, from 23 in 2019.

In 2019, assembly elections were held in Maharashtra on Oct. 21 and the results were announced on Oct. 24. The BJP and the undivided Shiv Sena contested together and secured a majority by winning 161 seats--105 for the BJP and 56 for the Sena. The undivided NCP won 54 seats and the Congress, 44. The Samajawadi Party, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, and Prahar Janshakti Party won two seats each. The Bahujan Vikas Aghadi won three seats, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, Peasants and Workers Party of India, Swabhimani Paksha, Jan Surajya Shakti, Krantikari Shetkari Paksha, and Rashtriya Samaj Paksha won one seat each. Independents won 13.

After the polls, the state was into turmoil when the Sena declined to support the BJP in government formation as the power-sharing deal between them collapsed. The state saw three governments in five years. On June 30, 2022, the state witnessed the formation of a third government with Shiv Sena's Eknath Shinde taking oath as chief minister and BJP's Devendra Fadnavis becoming deputy chief minister.

Below are the results of exit polls in Maharashtra:

End

Reported by Kuldeep Singh

Edited by Deepshikha Bhardwaj

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