Campaigning ends for Maharashtra Assembly elections

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, October 19

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Campaigning for the Maharashtra assembly elections due to be held on Monday came to an end with candidates of all the major parties hitting the road to reach to voters.

The highlight of the generally lacklustre campaign was Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah seeking votes for the BJP-Shiv Sena led alliance on the grounds that the government abrogated Article 370 as promised in its manifesto. On the other hand, the opposition Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party, both of which were still to recover from the defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, were depending mainly on Sharad Pawar to campaign for the alliance.

The Congress pressed in its star campaigner Rahul Gandhi. However party president Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi were absent from the campaign trail.

According to data put out by the Election Commission of India, 3,237 candidates are vying for 288 seats in the state legislature. There are 235 women in the fray. The state 8,98,39,600 voters of which 4,68,75,750 are men while 4,28,43,635 are women.

The BJP will contest 144 seats of the assembly’s 288, leaving 124 for ally Shiv Sena and the rest for its smaller allies.

The Congress and the NCP will contest 147 and 121 seats, respectively, leaving the rest for smaller parties.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is contesting from his home base, Nagpur, while his predecessors Ashok Chavan and Prithviraj Chavan are trying their luck from Bhokar in Nanded and Karad South in Satara, respectively.

Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray is the first from the Thackeray family to enter electoral politics—he will contest from Worli in Mumbai.