Mumbai: The 288-seat Maharashtra Assembly elections will be conducted in a single phase, while Jharkhand’s 82-seat Assembly elections will be held in two phases, the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced on Tuesday (October 15). Maharashtra will go to the polls on November 20, and the results will be announced on November 23. In Jharkhand, the first phase will take place on November 13, followed by the second and final phase on November 20, as announced by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar.
Last month, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir held their elections. Maharashtra, which was initially expected to hold elections alongside these states, was separated from the cluster. The ECI explained that the decision was made due to the upcoming festive season. However, opposition parties in Maharashtra claimed that the ruling BJP delayed the elections out of fear of unfavourable results.
Kumar provided a breakdown of voter turnout patterns in both Maharashtra and Jharkhand, focusing on the rural-urban divide. Among the 10 worst-performing constituencies, five – Kalyan, Pune, Thane, Mumbai North, Mumbai South Central and Mumbai South – were identified as the poorest performers. Kumar compared these constituencies to conflict-affected regions like Chhattisgarh and Kashmir, arguing that if rural voters in those areas were willing to come out and vote, there was no reason why urban voters couldn’t do the same.
Kumar noted that special drives had been organised in these areas to improve voter turnout. Prior to the parliamentary elections in April this year, the ECI had also arranged special initiatives across Mumbai and Thane districts to encourage voter participation. The efforts, however, did not yield significant results and these constituencies polled just over 40%, which is way below the state average.
According to the ECI, special efforts were made to engage the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) communities in both Maharashtra and Jharkhand in the electoral process. “Almost 100% of the population from the three PVTGs in Maharashtra and eight PVTGs in Jharkhand have been included in the voters’ list,” Kumar claimed. The three PVTGs in Maharashtra are the Katkari, Kolam and Maria Gond tribes, comprising over 2.77 lakh voters. The eight PVTGs in Jharkhand include the Asur, Birhor, Malphadiya, Pahadiya, Saurya Pahadiya, Birajiya, Korwa and Sarva communities, contributing approximately 1.78 lakh voters, according to the polls body.
Although Maharashtra has 288 assembly seats against Jharkhand’s 82, the elections in the former will be carried out in a single phase. Answering a question raised by a reporter at the media briefing in New Delhi, Kumar said, “Jharkhand has specific problems like Naxalism. Hence the election here is conducted in phases. The past election was in five phases. This year, it is in two phases.” He further added that the District Election Officers (DEOs) were directed to closely track the activities on the states’ borders. They have also been asked, along with law enforcement agencies, to crack down on money distribution or any other illegal activities in the state.
The results of the 2024 Parliamentary election in Maharashtra indicated voter dissatisfaction with the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde)-Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar) alliance government. The BJP was reduced to just 9 seats while Shinde’s party won 7 and Pawar’s faction secured only one seat. The opposition parties gained significant ground, with Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena faction winning 9 seats, Sharad Pawar’s NCP securing 8 seats and the Congress delivering a surprising performance with 13 seats.
The opposition had then alleged that their performance would have been even better had the ECI not given identical looking symbols to other independent candidates. For instance, after a split in the NCP, Sharad Pawar’s faction got a new symbol ‘a man blowing tura (trumpet)’ just weeks before the general election. While the party struggled to take the party symbol to their voters, there were many independent candidates too with their symbol of only trumpets. The Sharad Pawar faction candidates had alleged that this had confused their voters. The ECI today said that the two symbols are different and there can’t be any confusion between the two.
Since the parliamentary elections, the ruling parties have been working on war footing, rolling out populist schemes and intensifying voter outreach. Shinde has aggressively positioned himself as a chief ministerial candidate, leading to visible tensions among the allies.
