General election to the Legislative Assembly of Maharashtra will be held in a single phase on October 21, 2019. Counting of votes will take place on October 24 and the results will be out on the same day, the Election Commission (EC) announced.

Voting will begin at 7 am at the 95,473 polling booths, according to the EC.

The five-year term of the Legislative Assembly of Maharashtra expires on November 9.

The notification for the election for Maharashtra Assembly was issued on September 27. The last date for filing nomination was October 4, while the scrutiny of the nomination papers was done on October 5. The last day for withdrawing nominations was October 7.

There are 8,95,62,706 registered voters in Maharashtra,of which 8,94,46,211 are general electors and 1,16,495 are service voters.

The upper limit for expenditure on the election campaign is Rs 28 lakh for each candidate, the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora announced. Two special expenditure observers will also be sent to Maharashtra. In addition, Income Tax officials will be present.

Special security arrangements will be made for Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected areas in Gadchiroli and Gondia in Maharashtra, Chief Election Commissioner, Sunil Arora said.

The Election Commission of India has also assured all stakeholders of the quality of EVMs during the assembly election in Maharashtra.

The Election Commission (EC) on October 15 reiterated a complete ban on exit polls for the upcoming Assembly elections. In a detailed statement, the Election Commission said, “And as per the provisions of Section 126A of The Representation of the People Act, 1951 (in short R.P. Act, 1951), there shall be restrictions on conduct of any exit poll and publication and dissemination of result of such exit polls during the period notified by the EC.”

In the 2014 Maharashtra assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as the single largest party with 122 seats and the Shiv Sena, which also fought separately, secured 63. The Congress secured 42 seats, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) 41 seats while others managed 20.

The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party are contesting on 125-123 seats each, while other allies are contesting the remaining 41 in the polls this time. Depending on consensus between the parties, the seats may be swapped, according to Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan.

Out of 288 assembly seats in Maharastra, Shiv Sena has announced to contest on 124 seats while BJP will contest on 164 seats with smaller allies.
The final results of the seat-sharing negotiations came out on October 5 with the release of the BJP’s fourth list of candidates after the agreement between the two allies. Maharashtra Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis had flown to Mumbai for the event after holding a massive roadshow in Nagpur Southwest. He filed his nomination from the same area.

In the last few months, the talks between the two parties hadn’t been smooth. Shiv Sena was hoping for a 50:50 seat-sharing formula, similar to what happened in this year’s Lok Sabha elections. A certain section of the party leaders even pushed for ending the alliance if their demands were not fulfilled.

BJP and Shiv Sena had ended their alliance in 2014 Maharashtra elections. They got together only after the electorate delivered a split verdict.

Making waves during this election is Aaditya Thackeray, the Shiv Sena leader and Thackeray scion making his electoral debut. The 29-year-old Yuva Sena chief, who is the elder son of Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackera is the first member of the Thackeray family to contest an election. He is contesting from the Worli Assembly seat in Mumbai.

During the recently held Lok Sabha Elections 2019, BJP-Shiv Sena alliance won 41 (BJP 23, Shiv Sena 18) of 48 parliamentary seats in Maharashtra.