The Election Commission (EC) will announce the dates for Assembly polls in Maharashtra and Jharkhand on Tuesday. The poll body will announce the schedule at a press conference to be held at 3.30 pm.
In Maharashtra's last Assembly elections in 2019, the Shiv Sena (with no faction then) led by Uddhav Thackeray fought the election in alliance with the BJP. The Sena broke off the alliance over the Chief Minister's post. It then joined hands with Congress-NCP alliance and Uddhav Thackeray became Chief Minister on November 26, 2019.
This year's election will probably be the last prestige battle of 2024 with the fractured Shiv Sena and NCP battling the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance.
Sources in the BJP told NDTV the party will contest on 158 of the state’s 288 seats. It has offered 70 seats to Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and 50 to Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party.
The Congress, shocked by the Haryana defeat, will face an upbeat BJP. Among the key figures to be watched out in the poll season in Maharashtra will be Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange Patil, who has held a series of hunger strikes to demand reservation for the community.
In the Lok Sabha election held this year, MVA won 30 of the state's 48 Lok Sabha seats. The ruling alliance won 17. One seat went to an Independent candidate.
Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, Chief Minister Hemant Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) is ready to lock horns with the BJP. In the 2019 elections, JMM had won 30 seats and went on to form the government with the Congress, which won 16 seats.
Doubts over the future of this government emerged when Mr Soren was arrested in a land scam case in January, leading to the party's Champai Soren to take over the chief ministerial post.
Mr Soren said the JMM-led alliance will contest all 81 seats in the upcoming assembly elections. He expressed confidence in the party's electoral preparedness and asserted that the alliance would regain power in the state.
While the term of the Maharashtra assembly ends on November 26, that of Jharkhand ends on January 5 next year.
