Maharashtra election highlights: Exit polls predict Mahayuti's win; MVA to fall short of majority

Maharashtra election live: Voters waiting in a queue to cast their votes for Maharashtra Assembly election 2024 at a polling station in Mumbai on Wednesday.

Live Maharashtra election: Voting for the Maharashtra assembly election concluded at 6 pm. The state has recorded 62.05% voter turnout till as per data from the Election Commission of India (ECI) as of 10.35 pm. Maoist-infested Gadchiroli recorded the highest voter turnout at 69.63%, while Mumbai city recorded the lowest at 49.07% as of 5 pm. The results will be declared on November 23.

Track Maharashtra exit poll results live updates here

The high-stakes campaign wrapped up on Monday, featuring prominent leaders such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who urged voters to participate in large numbers.

Maharashtra is witnessing a showdown between two major political alliances: the ruling coalition ‘Mahayuti’ comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and the Opposition's Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) that included the Indian National Congress (INC), Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP).

Read more: Mahayuti or MVA? Voters in 288 seats to decide fate of 4,136 candidates today | Key points

According to the Election Commission of India (ECI), a total of 4,136 candidates are in the fray for the Vidhan Sabha elections in the state, a rise of 27.7 per cent over the number five years ago.

As many as 1,00,186 polling stations have been established across over 52,789 locations, to accommodate the approximately 9.7 crore eligible voters in the state. Among these polling stations, there are 388 "pink booths" specifically managed by women as well.

In a survey conducted between September 21 and October 6, 2024, Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and the MIT-School of Government (MIT-SOG), they identified unemployment and inflation at the top of the list of voter concerns, with 24 per cent and 22 per cent of respondents respectively considering them as their primary issues.

Agricultural distress also emerged as a significant concern for rural voters, due to inadequate minimum support prices (MSPs) for their produce and rising input costs.

Another critical issue that has emerged is the call for caste-based reservations, which has created friction, particularly between the Maratha community and OBC communities.

In light of NCP leader Baba Siddique’s death and a police encounter with a rape accused in Badlapur, several opposition parties have focused on the “deteriorating law and order situation” in the state under Eknath Shinde’s leadership.

Maharashtra election 2024: Key updates

• Uddhav Thackeray, the chief of Shiv Sena (UBT), accused the BJP of participating in a "note jihad" to secure votes, citing allegations that BJP leader Vinod Tawde distributed cash in Palghar. Tawde has refuted these claims, labeling them as a baseless publicity stunt.
• Supriya Sule of the NCP (SP) has filed a complaint to the election commission as well as a defamation suit after BJP MP Sudhanshu Trivedi alleged that she and Congress leader Nana Patole had illegally used cryptocurrency funds to rig the assembly elections in their favour.
• The ECI has prohibited political parties from publishing advertisements in print media on November 19 and 20 unless these ads have been pre-certified by the ‘Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC).
• The voter count in Mumbai has surpassed 1 crore, up from 98.95 lakh during the Lok Sabha elections.
• Navi Mumbai police has launched a one-click facility for voters, offering information on polling booths, parking, and crowd status via a QR code.
• A case has been filed against four unidentified individuals for the attempted murder of NCP (SP) leader Anil Deshmukh, after he was injured in a stone-pelting incident while returning from a campaign event in Nagpur on November 18.
• The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) will remain closed today due to the Maharashtra assembly elections
• Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate Zeeshan Siddiqui, contesting from Bandra East, cast his vote in the Maharashtra Assembly elections on Wednesday. Siddiqui, who recently joined the NCP, paid tribute to his late father, Baba Siddiqui, who was tragically killed, and shared that it was the first time he had voted alone.