58.43 per cent voters exercise franchise for Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024

Altogether 5843 per cent of voters exercised their franchise on Wednesday in the Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024 where the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party BJPled Mahayuti alliance is striving to retain power and the Maha Vikas Aghadi MVA combine hopes for a comebackAccording to news agency PTI these figures released by the election officials are provisional The polling body stated that 6174 per cent voting was recorded in the 2019 state electionsVoting began at 7 am in all 288 assembly constituencies and concluded at 6 pm The votes will be counted on November 23The polling process was marred by incidents of vandalism in Parli and some areas of Beed district as well as clashes between rival party supporters In one such incident a clash broke out between Shiv Sena candidate Suhas Kande and independent candidate Sameer Bhujbal in the Nandgaon Assembly Constituency of Nashik districtIn Parli where Dhananjay Munde of the Ajit Pawarled Nationalist Congress Party NCP was contesting a polling booth was vandalised and a worker of NCP Sharadchandra Pawar was assaulted Madhav Jadhav a local leader of NCP SP was assaulted in Bank Colony area of Parli town and a video of the assault went viral on social media Following this a polling booth at Ghatnandur in the constituency was vandalised A few individuals entered the booth threw the electronic voting machine EVM on the ground and damaged the furniture PTI reportedBeed District Collector Avinash Pathak said that the administration replaced the damaged EVMs following which the voting resumed He assured that the data from the earlier EVMs would be included during the counting processEVM malfunctions in NashikMeanwhile the NCP SP candidate from Parli Rajesaheb Deshmukh alleged that a CCTV camera was disabled at a polling booth in Dharmapuri in the constituencyIn Nashik a technical glitch occurred when an EVM malfunctioned at a polling station causing a brief delay for voters who had already received indelible ink marks reported PTI The incident took place at a polling station in the Nandgaon constituencyIn one of the most keenlywatched contests in the state NCP chief Ajit Pawar faced his nephew Yugendra in Baramati ConstituencyVoting also took place in Nanded for the Lok Sabha byelection where Congressrsquos Ravindra Chavan and BJPrsquos Santukrao Hambarde were in a direct contest This bypoll was triggered by the death of sitting Congress Member of Parliament MP Vasant Chavan on August 26 Following his death Congress gave the ticket to Vasant Chavans son Ravindra ChavanIn Mumbai several Bollywood celebrities including Shah Rukh Khan Salman Khan Akshay Kumar and Ranbir Kapoor cast their votes in the Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024 adding glamour to the festival of democracy Shah Rukh Khan arrived with his wife Gauri Khan and daughter Suhana Khan while Salman Khan who had faced death threats recently also exercised his voting right Other celebrities such as Saif Ali Khan and his wife Kareena Kapoor and Hema Malini with her daughter Esha Deol were seen voting as wellIndustrialist Mukesh Ambani his wife Neeta sons Anant and Akash and daughterinlaw Shloka Mehta also cast their votesIndependent candidate in Beed dies at polling boothCongress leader Sachin Pilot expressed confidence that the Maha Vikas Aghadi would form the next government in the state Meanwhile Shiv Sena MP Shrikant Shinde remarked ldquoThe atmosphere is good for the Mahayuti People are happy with our development work Ladki Bahin is an effective scheme and women voted in large numbersrdquoIndependent candidate Balasaheb Shinde who was contesting from Beed tragically passed away due to a heart attack at a polling boothAmong the 97 crore eligible voters in the state a number of centenarians also participated At 100 years old Kantaben Dani made her way to the polling booth in Mumbais Ghatkopar area on Wednesday morning to cast her vote accompanied by her family including her greatgrandsonVoters chose from 4136 candidates running for the 288 assembly seats in the Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024In the Mahayuti alliance the BJP contested 149 seats Shiv Sena 81 seats and the Ajit Pawarled NCP fielded candidates in 59 constituenciesIn the opposition MVA combine the Congress fielded 101 candidates Shiv Sena UBT 95 and NCP SP put up 86 candidates Other parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party and the All India MajliseIttehadulMuslimeen AIMIM also contested with BSP fielding 237 candidates and AIMIM running 17 candidatesThe Mahayuti comprising BJP Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the Nationalist Congress Party led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar is banking on its popular schemes like Majhi Ladki Bahin for women to help retain powerThe MVA made up of Congress Shiv Sena UBT and NCP Sharad Pawar is focusing on issues such as castebased census social justice and protecting the ConstitutionThis year the number of candidates increased by 28 per cent compared to the 2019 state assembly elections A total of 4136 candidates contested up from 3239 in 2019 Among these 2086 were independents Rebels contested in over 150 constituencies challenging their partyrsquos official nomineesThere were 100186 polling booths in Maharashtra this time compared to 96654 booths in the 2019 assembly electionsWith PTI inputs