Maharashtra: What the Lok Sabha Election Numbers Say About the Assembly Polls

Maharashtra is gearing up for a high-stakes election this month. This marks the first state assembly election since the 2022 split in Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). We’ve already seen a preview of these splits’ impact in the 2024 general election.

Earlier this year, the two new alliances – Mahayuti and Mahavikas Aghadi (MVA) – tested their mettle. Out of 48 total seats, Mahayuti won 17, MVA clinched 30, and an independent candidate secured one.

In the Mahayuti alliance, BJP won 9 out of 28 contested seats, while chief minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction secured 7 out of 15. Ajit Pawar’s NCP won just 1 out of 4 seats.

For the MVA, the Indian National Congress (INC) won 13 out of 17 contested seats. Uddhav Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) secured 9 out of 21, and Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP) won 8 out of 10 seats.

A deeper analysis of the Form 20 final result sheets reveals how these parties and alliances performed in the assembly segments within each parliamentary constituency. Maharashtra has 6 assembly segments in each of its 48 parliamentary constituencies, totalling 288 assembly segments.

The visualisation above shows the assembly segment leads by alliance in the 288 seats based on the 2024 General Election results. The MVA led in 153 seats, while the MY led in 127. The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) led in 2 seats, and independent candidates led in the remaining 6. 

The visualisation below breaks down the same data by individual party. The BJP led in 79 seats, followed by the INC with 63 seats. The SS (UBT) secured leads in 57 seats, while the SHS led in 41. The NCP (SP) was ahead in 33 seats. The remaining seats were distributed among AIMIM (2), RSPS (1), NCP (6), and independent candidates (6).

While the number of seats contested is a factor that determines how assembly segment leads differ from parliamentary segment results, let’s examine one parliamentary segment to see how this translates. 

Dhule is a parliamentary segment spanning two districts: Nashik and Dhule. It’s situated in the Khandesh sub-region. Like other parliamentary segments, it comprises six assembly segments. Three of these – Dhule City, Dhule Rural, and Sindkheda – are in Dhule district. The other three – Malegaon Central, Malegaon Outer, and Baglan (ST) – are in Nashik district.

The Congress candidate, Bachhav Shobha Dinesh, won the Dhule parliamentary segment by a razor-thin margin of 3,831 votes. However, the BJP candidate, Subhash Ramrao Bhamre, led in five out of six assembly segments. The exception was Malegaon Central, where out of 205,763 valid votes, the Congress candidate secured a staggering 198,869 votes compared to the BJP candidate’s mere 4,542 votes. 

The table below refers to the alliances’ leads assembly segment wise based on the General Election 2024 results sub-region wise. 

In Konkan, the sub-region with the highest number of seats, Mahayuti led in 43 out of 75 seats. However, Konkan also contains the Mumbai region with a cluster of 39 urban seats. Here, it was a tighter race, with the MVA leading in 20 seats while Mahayuti led in 19.

Marathwada is another key sub-region where the Maratha reservation demand issue is expected to have a strong impact. In this area, the MVA secured a substantial lead in 32 out of 46 seats.

The Vidarbha sub-region, with the second-highest number of seats, is also expected to be significant due to the intense agrarian crisis prevalent in the area. Here too, the MVA led decisively in 42 out of the 62 seats.

While the issues, factors, combinations, candidates, narratives, perceptions, and other specifics of each election differ – and indeed, they vary between general and state elections – the assembly segment leads from the 2024 general election provide us with a solid starting point. This data offers more than a decent foundation to navigate the complex maze of Maharashtra’s political landscape.