Maharashtra Election 2024 live: Maharashtra has started voting in the 2024 assembly election today across all 288 constituencies at 7 am, with polling scheduled to conclude at 6pm. The results will be declared on November 23. 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 will witness 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).
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.
