Ajit Pawar, Amit Shah and Eknath Shinde.
Nominations for the Maharashtra Assembly elections have ended. The state’s 288 seats will go to polls on November 20 and counting will take place on November 23. After that, it will be clear whether Maharashtra will again form a Mahayutthi government or whether Maha Vikas Aghadi will return to power. But after that, both parties will campaign hard.
After Diwali, all big leaders from both the BJP, Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena will hold election rallies and intense campaigning in the state, but for the first time, the BJP will contest the election with the least number of seats so far. In this context, the question arises: Why is the BJP contesting the election with fewer seats?
The BJP is contesting in 148 seats
The BJP is contesting only 148 of the 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra this time. Compared to the 2019 Assembly elections, the BJP is contesting 15 fewer seats this time, while the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena fielded 80 seats, The National Congress Party led by Ajit Pawar fielded 53 seats.
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Apart from this, five seats were given to other Maharaja allies, while two sections did not take a decision. In this context, the question is raised: under what pressure did the BJP reduce its candidate pool?
According to sources in the BJP, the anti-incumbency wave against the BJP is very high in the state this time. At the same time, the People’s Party exchanged candidates for at least 10 seats with its allies this time, keeping the People’s Party’s strike rate unchanged.
Bharatiya Janata Party wins 9 seats in Lok Sabha elections
In this year’s Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won only nine seats after contesting 28 seats. Judging from the vote share, the Bharatiya Janata Party won 26.4% of the vote share.
However, if we compare the electoral performance of the BJP with the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it was absolutely bad. If we talk about the BJP’s ally, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena contested from 15 seats and won 7 seats with 13% vote share.
Ajit Pawar-led National Congress Party (NCP) gets only one seat
Ajit Pawar’s National Congress Party (NCP) contested four seats and won just one with a total vote share of 3.6%, while the BJP had a slightly higher 27.8% vote share in 2019 vote share in 2024.
The Congress secured 16.4% of the votes, while the Shiv Sena and the National Congress secured 23.5% and 15.7% of the votes respectively.
Even in the 2014 and 2019 assembly elections, the BJP had higher vote share than other parties. In this scenario, political experts believe that Shinde and Ajit Pawar’s party Shiv Sena can win on local issues in Maharashtra. Earlier we were also number one in the alliance, the BJP said. Even today it remains the number one party in the coalition.
Maratha reservation a big issue in elections
Many Marathas also voted for him. The Maratha reservation has been a big issue in the state. Due to the reservation issue, the BJP is avoiding the Marathi issue so that its head does not explode and most importantly, the seats are being allotted on the basis of who wins from where.
In 2019, the BJP, in alliance with the undivided Shiv Sena alliance, contested 164 seats and received 25.8% of the vote. Under such circumstances, this time the BJP not only gave more seats to its two new allies, but also saw a wide range of competition between the parties of the Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar. .