Elections LIVE | Maharashtra votes in Mahayuti again, Jharkhand retains INDIA bloc
Will Devendra Fadnavis and Hemant Soren become Chief Ministers? Government formation talks on
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren (3rd from right), his wife and JMM leader Kalpana Soren (4th right) celebrate with family members after the victory of JMM-led INDIA bloc in the Jharkhand Assembly elections, in Ranchi, on Saturday (November 23). Photo: X/@HemantSorenJMM
Few predicted it, and in an election that was supposed to be close, the ruling BJP-led Mahayuti alliance is headed for a landslide win in Maharashtra, bagging over 200 seats. In Jharkhand again, the outcome has not gone as per the script, with INDIA Bloc making a stunning comeback, in a late swing of seats.
As per the latest updates, the BJP-led alliance is winning in 225 seats, with the Maha Vikas Aghadi tottering at 55. In Jharkhand, INDIA Bloc is ahead in 51 seats, and NDA in 29.
Here are the bypoll updates from across states:
Kerala: Congress leads in Palakkad and Wayanad (LS); Left in Chelakkara
Karnataka: Congress leads in all three seats
Uttar Pradesh: BJP leads in six seats; SP 3
Punjab: AAP leads in 2 seats; Congress 2
Rajasthan: Congress, BJP and Bharat Adivasi Party lead in two seats each
West Bengal: Trinamool Congress leads in all six Assembly seats
Bihar: NDA leads in two seats.
Uttarakhand: BJP leads
With a dramatic change in its political dynamics over the last two and a half years following a split in the regional forces like Shiv Sena and NCP, Maharashtra witnessed an intense battle between the ruling Mahayuti alliance and the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) grouping. The Mahayuti comprises the BJP, Shiv Sena (Shinde), and Ajit Pawar-led NCP, while the MVA has Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), and NCP (SP) as its constituents.
Also read: Graphic Explainer | Maharashtra polls: Six regions, and their electoral dynamics
We are also running exciting live discussions on our YouTube channel. Watch them here.
Jharkhand witnessed a fierce electoral battle between the ruling JMM-led INDIA bloc and the BJP-led NDA, with the former seeking to retain power and the latter attempting to wrest it from the ruling dispensation.The NDA attacked the JMM-led coalition over corruption and infiltration, criticising ruling party leaders, including the chief minister, who is out on bail. Hemant Soren hit out at the saffron camp, alleging that the Opposition party spent over Rs 500 crore on "malicious campaigns" against him.
Also read: BJP’s aggression over ‘infiltrators’ undercuts JMM in key tribal hubs
Read the live updates here.
Most exit polls were right in predicting NDA's victory in Maharashtra even though none of them could predict the scale of the Mahayuti's win, but most of these surveys got the Jharkhand assembly elections wrong.
Axis MyIndia, which had predicted 178-200 seats for the Mahayuti, 82-102 seats for the opposition MVA and 6-12 seats for others, came closest to the final results in Maharashtra. The ruling alliance was likely to end up winning in over 230 constituencies in the 288-seat assembly.
In Jharkhand, while all other exit polls had predicted a victory for the NDA, Axis MyIndia predicted that the Congress-JMM alliance would manage a tally of 49-59 seats, while the BJP-led NDA and three seats for others.
This, however, comes after two of its predictions in the Lok Sabha and Haryana assembly elections were off the mark. The agency, however, got the US election right.
In the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly, 145 is the majority mark, while it is 41 in the 81-member Jharkhand Assembly.
The exit poll conducted by People's Pulse gave NDA's Mahayuti a whopping 175-195 seats while giving only 85-112 seats to MVA and 7-12 to others in Maharashtra.
Some exit polls had also predicted a victory for the BJP in 5-7 seats out of bypolls held in nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh.
After the reverses in the Lok Sabha election, the ruling BJP-led alliance secured its hold over the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh with its candidates winning seven out of nine seats. The BJP retained four seats -- Ghaziabad, Khair, Majhawan and Phulpur -- and wrested Katehari and Kundarki from the SP while its ally RLD retained one. The Samajwadi Party, which had four of these seats, retained Sishamau and Karhal.
The Election Commission has been criticising the exit polls on the manner in which they are conducted and in several past elections, they have been proved to be way off the mark.
The 7-2 result in the bypolls to nine Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh in favour of the BJP reasserted Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s political authority in the state's politics, especially after the recent reverses in Lok Sabha polls.
At the same time, the Congress not contesting and the BSP’s yet another below-par show meant that despite losing ground, the Samajwadi Party continues to dominate the opposition space in the most populous state.
The results were immaterial from the issue of the UP BJP government’s stability and yet much pride was at stake, especially for the ruling party as the bypolls were the first electoral test of the BJP-led-NDA and INDIA bloc after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in which the opposition had limited the BJP to its worst show in UP since 2014. The saffron party had won 33 seats, while the SP had emerged on top with 37 seats out of 80.
In each of the seven assembly seats that the BJP won on Saturday, all the winning candidates were unanimous that Adityanath and his call for unity were a "big factor" in their victory.
That’s why even before the Election Commission officially confirmed the byelection results, a confident Adityanath arrived at the UP BJP office in Lucknow around 3.30 pm on Saturday to reiterate the importance of “ek hain toh safe hain" and "batenge toh katenge" (united we are safe, divided we perish)’ – slogans that virtually became a call for Hindu unity to counter's the opposition's "caste politics" in the mini-polls.
Through his "batenge toh katenge' slogan that Adityanath first raised in August and which set the narrative for the bypolls, the BJP upped the ante with its cadres explaining the slogan’s underlying “Hindu unity” content during its door-to-door contact campaigns. PTI
Senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala said the Maharashtra Assembly poll results are unbelievable and unacceptable and asked if the ruling alliance's Ladki Bahin Yojana had managed to end farm woes and other problems faced by citizens.
"The Maharashtra assembly polls are unbelievable and unacceptable. Did farm woes, price rise, unemployment, corruption end because of Ladki Bahin Yojana," Chennithala asked at a press conference.
The victorious Mahayuti has given a large part of the credit for the stellar showing to the scheme, under which women with an annual family income of less than Rs 2.5 lakh get Rs 1500 as monthly aid. The ruling alliance leaders had said this amount would be increased to Rs 2100 if they retained power.
"We will study the results in detail and go back to the people. We will continue to raise issues of the people," said Chennithala, who is the party's Maharashtra in charge.