By Amika

Pune: The election festival is back in Maharashtra. The Election Commission of India today announced single phase election to Maharashtra with polling on November 20 and counting on November 23.

Addressing a press conference in New Delhi today, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said polling in Maharashtra will be held on November 20 and counting on November on 23.

He said Maharashtra will has 9.64 crore voters. Of these, 1.85 are young voters, 4.66 crore are women voters and remaining 4.94 crore are male voters.

Maharashtra will have one lakh 186 polling centres. Of these, over 57,000 polling centres will be in rural areas. "The elections are such a festival that it needs participation of the voters," he said.

The Mahayuti led by BJP has been in power in Maharashtra. had been claiming that it will announce the seat-sharing before the assembly elections are announced. This step, the Mahayuti leaders, had said was necessary as it had suffered setback in Lok Sabha elections due to delayed seat-sharing announcement. During the Lok Sabha election, the Mahayuti not only delayed the announcement of candidates but was also forced to replace a few candidates. 

However, after failing to reach consensus on seats, leaders of both the Mahayuti and MVA said seat-sharing will now be hurried up as the elections have been announced.

In the three-party, the Mahayuti, the BJP is all to set remain the dominant party. The party has already made up its mind to contest as many as 160 of the 288 Maharashtra assembly seats. ''So far, the Mahayuti has finalised 240 seats and a decision on 48 remaining seats have to be taken,'' a BJP spokesperson said.

The BJP spokesperson said the party has decided to contest 160 seats. ''The remaining seats will be shared by the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar led NCP,'' the spokesperson said. The Shinde Sena is likely to be number two in contesting the seats while Ajit Pawar's party will be at third place.

In the Maha Vikas Aghadi, the three parties have so far finalised 225 seats. ''Our discussions on the remaining seats are underway and would be finalised in a couple of days,'' Maharashtra Congress chief spokesperson Atul Londhe told this paper.

Senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan, who is the former chief minister said, no party has so far claimed highest number of seats. ''Though we have finalised 225 seats, as of now, we can't who will get the highest number of seats. There are debate and discussion on each and every seat. Only when we add up all seats that have been alloted, we will come to know who will get the maximum number of seats.

In 2019, the BJP and Shiv Sena had contested in alliance while the Congress and NCP were in alliance. 

The BJP had emerged with highest number of 105 seats while the undivided Shiv Sena had emerged second with 56 seats. The NCP and Congress were placed at third and fourth spot respectively.

However, the BJP and Shiv Sena alliance fell apart over the issue of chief ministership. The Shiv Sena said BJP had promised the chief minister's post to it. However, the BJP said it had never made such a promise.

The Uddhav Sena then formed an alliance with Congress and NCP to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi government. Two and half years later in June 2022, the BJP brought down the government by causing a split in Shiv Sena. One group of 40 MLAs led by Eknath Shinde joined hands to form the government with BJP. Subsequently, the BJP caused a split in NCP. A group of about 40 MLAs led by Ajit Pawar then joined hands with BJP and Sena government to form the Mahayuti Government which since then has been in power.