As polling concludes across Maharashtra and Jharkhand today, all eyes will be on exit polls, which are expected to offer the first glimpse of the likely election results. Voters are casting their ballots in all 288 Assembly seats in Maharashtra and 38 of the remaining 81 seats in Jharkhand. This marks the second phase of polling in Jharkhand, following the first phase held on 13 November.
In Maharashtra, 29 seats are reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) and 25 for Scheduled Tribes (ST). Meanwhile, Jharkhand’s second-phase seats include eight reserved for STs and three for SCs.
Maharashtra’s elections pit the ruling Mahayuti alliance, comprising the BJP led by Devendra Fadnavis, the Shiv Sena faction led by Eknath Shinde, and the NCP faction led by Ajit Pawar, against the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition. The MVA, which includes the Congress, Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP), aims to replicate its success in the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year.
In the 2019 Assembly elections, Maharashtra saw a hung house, with the BJP winning 105 seats (25.75% vote share), the Shiv Sena securing 56 (16.41%), the NCP at 54 (16.71%) and the Congress with 44 (15.87%). The political stalemate led to President’s Rule before the MVA eventually formed a government with Uddhav Thackeray as Chief Minister.
However, Maharashtra’s political landscape has been volatile since the Shiv Sena split in 2022 and the NCP split in 2023, leading to the fall of the MVA government and the formation of the Mahayuti government under Eknath Shinde.
Despite these shifts, the MVA made significant gains in the recent Lok Sabha elections, securing 30 of Maharashtra’s 48 seats. At the Assembly segment level, the MVA led in 153 segments, surpassing the majority mark of 145, while the Mahayuti trailed with leads in 125 segments.
In terms of vote share, the MVA held a marginal edge with 43.71% compared to the Mahayuti’s 43.55%, setting the stage for a tightly contested Assembly election.
In Jharkhand, the second phase of voting covers constituencies in the Santhal Pargana and North Chhotanagpur regions. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)-led alliance, which includes the Congress and CPI(ML)L, seeks to retain its hold under Chief Minister Hemant Soren.
In the 2019 Assembly elections, the JMM-led alliance outperformed the BJP despite the latter’s higher vote share. The JMM won 13 of the second-phase seats, while the Congress secured eight and the BJP 12. Meanwhile, former Babulal Marandi-led Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM) that merged with the BJP in 2020, won another two seats.
In the second phase of the election, the BJP secured a significantly larger vote share of 33.38%, surpassing the JMM’s 18.48%. However, despite this higher percentage of votes, the BJP was ahead of the JMM in terms of seats. The Congress gathered 14.26% of the vote, while the AJSUP obtained 9.6%.
However, the BJP appears to have regained momentum in the recent Lok Sabha elections. At the Assembly segment level, the BJP-All Jharkhand Students’ Union Party (AJSUP) combine led in 21 of the second-phase segments, compared to 12 for the JMM-Congress alliance.
The BJP-AJSUP alliance also outpaced the JMM-Congress coalition in vote share, with 45.41% compared to the INDIA bloc’s 37%.
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