New Delhi. The Election Commission may announce the dates of Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly elections on Monday or Tuesday. The current term of Maharashtra Assembly will end on 26 November 2024. At the same time, the current tenure of Jharkhand Assembly is till January 5, 2025. The Election Commission team had visited Maharashtra and Jharkhand in September and held a meeting to make arrangements for the elections there. Till now the Election Commission has been announcing voting dates within 15 days of such meetings. In such a situation, there is a possibility that Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly election dates may be announced on 14 or 15 October.
There are 288 seats in Maharashtra Assembly. Here for majority one has to get 145 seats. Talking about the year 2019, BJP had contested the Maharashtra Assembly elections in alliance with undivided Shiv Sena. Then BJP had got 105 seats. Whereas, 56 MLAs of undivided Shiv Sena were elected. 54 MLAs of undivided NCP were elected to Maharashtra Assembly in 2019. 44 Congress MLAs, 16 from other parties and 13 independent MLAs also reached Maharashtra Assembly. Shiv Sena separated from BJP after Uddhav Thackeray claimed the post of CM. Then Uddhav Thackeray formed the government with Congress and undivided NCP. After this, 39 MLAs along with Eknath Shinde split Shiv Sena and formed the government with BJP. There was also a split in the NCP and Ajit Pawar decided to break uncle Sharad Pawar’s party and join the BJP-Shiv Sena government.
There are 81 seats in Jharkhand Assembly. Here it is necessary to have 42 MLAs for majority. Talking about 2019, 26 MLAs of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha i.e. JMM had won here. 22 BJP MLAs also won. Apart from these, Congress had won on 16 seats. AJSU won 3, JVM won 2, RJD won 1, CPI-ML won 1, NCP won 1 and 2 independents also won. 1 MLA is nominated here. Here JMM has run the government for 5 years by joining hands with other parties including Congress and RJD to keep BJP out of power.
