Maharashtra polls: In postal ballot, MVA and Mahayuti were neck and neck

The ruling Mahayuti and opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) were neck and neck in terms of their leads in the 288 constituencies in the state assembly

MUMBAI: Amid the debate over voting through EVMs, data released by the Election Commission of India has revealed that in the counting of the 5.45 lakh postal ballots, the ruling Mahayuti and opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) were neck and neck in terms of their leads in the 288 constituencies in the state assembly. While the Mahayuti was leading in 142 constituencies, the MVA was leading in 137 seats, in the first hour of counting on Saturday.

Election officials count postal ballots. Representative Image. (REUTERS)

The difference in seats between two alliances started widening only after the counting of EVM votes began after the completion of the postal ballot counting.

The postal ballot option is offered only to certain types of voters – those aged 85 years and above and who choose to vote from home; essential services employees including election commission employees who vote from facilitation centers at the place of duty; and soldiers in the security forces.

Of the 5.45 lakh postal ballots sent in, over 81,000 were of senior citizens and 31,000 of essential services employees. Postal ballots were counted first, as soon as counting started at 8am on Saturday. Home voting and essential services voting is done on ballot papers, while the security forces voting is done via the Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS).

Following were the results of the postal ballot: The BJP was leading in 84 seats, Shiv Sena in 29, NCP in 24, while the smaller Mahayuti allies were leading in 5 constituencies. Of the MVA constituents, the Congress was leading in 56 seats, NCP (SP) in 40, and Shiv Sena (UBT) in 37 seats. The opposition alliance’s four smaller allies were leading in four constituencies. Thus, the difference between the ruling and opposition alliances was just five seats. The difference in leads between the two coalitions kept widening as the counting of EVM votes progressed. Each constituency had 20 to 30 rounds of EVM counting.

Of the 17 assembly segments scanned by HT for ballot-paper votes, Mahayuti was leading in 8, MVA was leading in 7 and Independents were leading in two.

Interestingly, in the Nanded Lok Sabha by-election, the postal vote did turn the result in the favour of the Congress candidate, Ravindra Chavan, who polled an overall 5,86,788 votes, while his BJP rival, Santukrao Hambarde, polled 5,85,331 votes, a margin of 1,457 votes. Hambarde was initially declared the winner but in the recount, it was found that Chavan had polled more votes, after taking his postal votes into account – 8,524.

On the national scale, though, the postal vote size is negligible vis-à-vis those polled via EVMs – 5.45 lakh against 64.08 million. Kiran Kulkarni, additional chief electoral officer, said, “The trends and patterns of the results change with every round based on various aspects including demography and the dominance of particular types of voters. We cannot say that the trend in postal ballots is an indicator of any swing.”

Maharashtra Congress general secretary Sachin Sawant said, “The vote share we got via postal ballot is much more than what we got through EVMs, and this raises doubts over the EVMs. That’s why we are demanding voting on ballot paper.”

In a post on X on Thursday, NCP-SP leader Rohit Pawar has also pointed at the difference between the lead from postal ballot counting and the EVM results. “In Lok Sabha-2024 and Assembly-2019, there was hardly any difference in the trends of the postal ballots and the EVMs. In 2024-LS polls MVA won 31 and was leading on 30 seats, while in 2019-Assembly, BJP won 105 and was leading in 101 postal ballots, Congress won 44 and was leading in 45 in postal ballots. This shows that in the previous elections, the difference was miniscule. Similarly, the votes polled by Mahayuti in postal ballots are 43.3% against 49.5% of EVM votes. The MVA got 43.1% votes in postal ballots and 35.1% in EVM,” he has stated.

Meanwhile, the BJP, which garnered 26.77% votes of the total 64.08 million votes polled in the state, garnered 51.78% votes in the 132 constituencies it won. The Shiv Sena polled 45.67% in the 57 seats it bagged, and NCP polled 42.18% votes in the 41 constituencies it won. In contrast, the Congress polled 35.7% votes in the 16 seats it won, Sena (UBT) polled 31.72% votes in the 20 seats it bagged, while the NCP (SP) polled 35.46% votes in the 10 constituencies it won.

The data also revealed that 119 of 125 Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) candidates and 194 of 200 Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) candidates lost their deposits. The MNS polled 1.55 % votes, while the VBA’s percentage dropped significantly, to 2.19% from 2.75%, in the Lok Sabha polls.

Among the six major parties, the number of candidates who lost their deposits was as follows: Sena (UBT) 10, Congress 9, NCP 5, NCP (SP) one, and Shiv Sena one. In the BJP, every single candidate polled more than a sixth of the total votes polled in their respective constituencies, the minimum needed to save their deposit.