New Delhi: The Maharashtra and Jharkhand Assembly elections will be held across two phases beginning November 13, the Election Commission said Tuesday. Jharkhand will vote in two phases - on November 13 and November 20, and Maharashtra will vote in one phase - on November 20.
Counting of votes for both states will take place on November 23, the poll panel said. The term of the Maharashtra legislative assembly, with a total of 288 seats, ends on November 26. With the announcement of election dates, the model code of conduct has come into place in the state.
In the 2019 Maharashtra assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the (then undivided) Shiv Sena dominated, winning 161 of 288 seats. However, the alliance fell apart over sharing of power and the Sena joined hands with the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress to form the government.
However, in 2023, rebellions by Sena’s Eknath Shinde, who is now Maharashtra chief minister, and NCP’s Ajit Pawar, now his deputy, forced then CM Uddhav Thackeray to step down and his coalition Maha Vikas Aghadi government to collapse.
In the 2019 assembly elections, Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, part of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, won 47 of the state’s 82 seats. Earlier this year, Soren resigned as CM ahead of his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate on corruption charges. He was briefly replaced by Champai Soren, a veteran politician and close aide of party patriarch Shibu Soren. But after Hemant returned to the CM’s chair following his release on bail, Champai rebelled and later quit to join the BJP.
