BJP's vote share bigger than JMM in Jharkhand; 21 women candidates win in Maharashtra: Key takeaways
In Maharashtra, the ruling alliance's final tally was 235. The MVA won 49 seats.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance scored a landslide victory in the Maharashtra assembly election, obliterating the Maha Vikas Aghadi's challenge and handing the Congress its biggest loss in the state. On the other hand, Jharkhand was a consolation for the opposition's INDIA bloc as the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-Congress alliance retained power with a thumping majority.
Here are the key takeaways from the Jharkhand and Maharashtra assembly election results.
Also read: Maharashtra polls: Bruised in LS, how NDA got its groove back
Final results
In Maharashtra, the ruling alliance's final tally was 235. The MVA won 49 seats. The BJP emerged as the single-largest party with 132 seats. Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena won 57 seats and Ajit Pawar's NCP won 41. In the opposition camp, Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena (UBT) won 20 seats, the Congress won 16 and the NCP (SP) won 10. The Samajwadi Party won 2 seats. Other parties and independents won 10.
The BJP's vote share was 26.77 per cent. The Congress's vote share was 12.42 per cent, followed by Shiv Sena's 12.38 per cent, NCP(SP)'s 11.28 per cent and Shiv Sena (UBT)'s 9.96 per cent.
In Jharkhand, the JMM won 34 seats, the Congress 16, RJD 4, and CPI (ML) 2. The BJP won 21 seats, AJSUP 1, and LJPRV 1. The JMM-Congress alliance won 56 seats in total. The BJP-led NDA won 24.
In Jharkhand, BJP's vote share was greater than JMM's. The BJP contested 68 seats and registered a 33.18 per cent vote share compared to JMM’s 23.44 per cent. The Congress's vote share was 15.56 per cent.
Also read: RSS plays a key role in BJP-led Mahayuti’s big win in Maharashtra
21 women MLAs in 288-strong Maharashtra assembly
21 women candidates won the Maharashtra assembly election and only one of them is from the opposition's camp. The BJP accounted for the highest number of winning women candidates at 14, including 10 candidates who were re-elected. They are: Shweta Mahale (Chikli constituency), Meghana Bordikar (Jintur), Devyani Farande (Nashik central), Seema Hiray (Nashik West), Manda Mhatre (Belapur), Manisha Chaudhari (Dahisar), Vidya Thakur (Goregaon), Madhuri Misal (Parvati), Monica Rajale (Shevgaon) and Namita Mundada (Kaij). The four new women MLAs of the BJP are Shreejaya Chavan (Bhokar), Sulabha Gaikwad (Kalyan East), Sneha Pandit (Vasai), and Anuradha Chavan (Fulambari). Manjula Gavit (Sakri) and Sanjana Jadhav (Kannad) were elected on Shiv Sena tickets.
Sulbha Khodke (Amravati), Saroj Ahire (Deolali), Sana Malik (Anushaktinagar) and Aditi Tatkare (Shrivardhan) won on NCP tickets. Congress' Jyoti Gaikwad (Dhavari) will be the lone woman MLA on the opposition's side.
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Smaller parties failed to make an impact in Maharashtra
Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and Prakash Ambedkar's Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi failed to make an impact. The Bahujan Samaj Party and the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) fielded candidates on 237 and 28 seats, respectively, but failed to open their accounts. Raju Shetti-led Swabhimani Paksha, which fielded 19 candidates, also failed to win even a single seat. Bachchu Kadu-led Prahar Janshakti Party fielded 38 candidates but couldn't win even a single seat.
The Samajwadi Party, Jan Surajya Shakti won two seats each. The CPM, the AIMIM, the Rashtriya Yuva Swabhiman Party, Rashtriya Samaj Paksh, the Peasants and Workers Party and Rajashri Shahu Vikas Aghadi won one seat each.
Muslim-dominated seats in Maharashtra
In seats where the Muslim population is more than 35 per cent, six candidates from the opposition's Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) emerged victorious; the BJP won four seats and Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehad Muslimeen (AIMIM) won a single seat.
AIMIM won Malegaon Central with a narrow margin. Mufti Mohammed Khalique polled 1,09,653 votes to emerge victorious by a slender margin of 162 votes against Asif Shaikh Rashid of a local outfit.
Samajwadi Party's Abu Azmi won the Mankhurd-Shivaji Nagar seat again. SP's Rais Kasam Shaikh won the Bhiwandi East seat. Congress's Amin Patel defeated Shaina NC, who quit the BJP to join alliance partner Shiv Sena. BJP's Mahesh Choughule won the Bhiwandi West seat by a margin of 31,293 votes, defeating his nearest rival, Azmi Riyaj Muqeemuddin of the SP.
In Amravati, NCP's Sulbha Khodke defeated Congress's Sunil Deshmukh by more than 5,413 votes.
In the Mumbra-Kalwa seat, NCP (SP) leader Jitendra Awhad won by a margin of more than 96,228 votes against the Ajit Pawar-led NCP's Najeeb Mulla.
RJD's surprise performance in Jharkhand
The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) emerged as a surprise element in the Jharkhand assembly election. The Lalu Yadav-led party's candidates won four of the six seats. RJD candidates defeated sitting BJP MLAs in four assembly seats.
RJD’s Sanjay Prasad Yadav registered a comfortable win by 21,471 votes in Godda over BJP MLA Amit Kumar Mandal. Party candidate Naresh Prasad Singh won by 14,587 votes over BJP’s Bishrampur MLA Ramchandra Chandravanshi. RJD's Sanjay Kumar Singh Yadav registered a victory from Hussainabad by 34,364 votes over BJP’s MLA Kamlesh Kumar Singh.
What happened in the bypolls?
Out of the 46 seats where byelections were conducted, the BJP and its allies won 26, followed by Congress with seven wins. Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress won six seats, the AAP won three and the Samajwadi Party won 2. The LDF in Kerala and BAP in Rajasthan got one each. SKM won two seats in Sikkim. The Congress won both the Lok Sabha by-polls -- Wayanad and Nanded.
With inputs from ANI, PTI
