Mumbai: Announcement of dates for the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections. It can happen anytime after August 30. The Election Commission will publish the final voter list for this election. The date of August 30 has been announced. In such a situation, it is expected that the dates of the election will be announced after this date.
The Election Commission conducted a revision of the voter list between 25 June and 5 August. After this action, the first draft of the voter list was prepared and it was released on 6 August. Now, from 6 August, objections and suggestions regarding the draft of the voter list have been invited till 20 August. The final voter list will be published on 30 August after receiving objections, suggestions and claims till 20th and with this, one phase of the assembly election exercise will be completed and the date fixation, security arrangements and other administrative preparations will begin.
The term of the current Maharashtra Assembly with 288 seats will end on November 26. However, the date of Diwali is on November 1. Voting may be affected due to a large number of people visiting their hometowns during Diwali celebrations. Therefore, one calculation is that the Election Commission may schedule the elections to be held in the month of October before Diwali.
In the last assembly elections in the state, there was a contest between BJP and the then undivided Shiv Sena on one side and Congress and the then undivided NCP on the other. However, no single party got a clear majority. The alliance between BJP and Shiv Sena broke down due to Shiv Sena's insistence on getting the post of Chief Minister. At one time, BJP's Devendra Fadnavis had sworn in NCP's Ajit Pawar as Deputy CM to form the government, but this government lasted only for a few hours. Later, Shiv Sena's Uddhav Thackeray formed the Maha Vikas Aghadi government along with Congress and NCP. However, in June 2022, Shiv Sena broke away and Eknath Shinde formed the government with BJP. Later last year, Ajit Pawar also broke away from NCP and joined this government.
In this election, two alliances i.e. BJP, Shinde's Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar's NCP on one side and Congress, Uddhav's Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar's NCP on the other side are going to face each other. Since the opposition Mahavikas Aghadi had won 31 out of 48 seats in the last Lok Sabha elections, their enthusiasm is at its peak.
Seven lakh voters increased compared to Lok Sabha
There has been an increase of seven lakh voters for the Assembly in Maharashtra compared to the Lok Sabha.
A total of 9,29,43,890 voters were registered in the state during the Lok Sabha elections held in April-May last year. However, after the revision of the voter list by the Election Commission, the number of voters has increased to 9,36,75,934.
There were 4,83,12,428 male voters in Lok Sabha while there were 4,50,17,066 female voters. There are 3,40,660 more male voters and 3,91,324 more female voters registered in Vidhan Sabha.