Maharashtra Assembly Elections Begin

Maharashtra is conducting its Assembly elections on the 21st of October. The polling started at 7:00 A.M., and will continue till 6:00 P.M.

Approximately 8.9 crore voters are voting, out of which, 4,69,90,246 voters are men, 4,28,46,720 are women and 2,634 are third gender voters. There are a total of 3,239 candidates in the fray for 288 Assembly seats. The major parties contesting the elections are the alliance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena and the Indian National Congress (INC,) in alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP.)

The BJP is contesting 150 seats, whereas the Shiv Sena is fighting for 124 seats and the remaining seats were given to smaller allies. On the other hand, the INC and the NCP are contesting 125 seats each, leaving 38 seats for the smaller allies and independent candidates.

As of now, ministers and political leaders like Supriya Sule of the NCP, Nitin Gadkari, the Transport Minister of India and his wife, Kanchan Gadkari, cast their votes.

Besides, Haribhau Bagade, the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker, Sandip Patil, a former cricketer and leaders like Ashish Shelar and Ashok Chavan were amongst others to cast their votes early.

The voters shared their pictures on Twitter after casting their votes. Maharashtra recorded a total of 32 % voters turn out by 3:00 P.M.

The results of the Maharashtra Assembly elections will be announced on the 24th of October.

Stay tuned for further updates.