Assembly Elections 2019: Voting Ends In Maharashtra, Haryana, BJP Hopes To Retain Both: 10 Points

Assembly Elections 2019: The counting of votes will take place on October 24.

Highlights

BJP seeking second term in power and hoping for easy victory
Congress yet to recover from its rout in Lok Sabha elections
Counting of votes will take place on Thursday

New Delhi: Voting for the assembly polls has ended in Maharashtra and Haryana, with both states registering a lower turnout than in 2014. Maharashtra recorded a voter turnout of 60.05 per cent - slightly below 63.4 per cent in 2014. Only 65 per cent polling was registered in Haryana, compared to 76.3 per cent in 2014. Going by conventional wisdom, the low turnout held hopes for the BJP, which is seeking a second term in power in both states. The Congress, yet to recover from its rout in the Lok Sabha election, is in a shambles -- battling factionalism, rebellion and defections. Its ally in Maharashtra, Sharad Paward's Nationalist Congress Party, is struggling too. Bypolls were held in 53 seats across 17 states and the union territory of Puducherry. The counting of votes will take place on Thursday.

Here are the top 10 facts on elections in Maharashtra and Haryana:

For Maharashtra's 288 seats, the BJP is continuing its alliance with Shiv Sena, despite their rocky relationship over the last five years. The BJP is contesting on 150 seats, the Shiv Sena on 124 seats, the rest are for smaller allies. In the opposition camp, the Congress is contesting 146 seats, the Nationalist Congress Party on 117 seats. The Sena-BJP alliance currently holds 217 seats, the Congress and the NCP 56 seats.
Voting was also held in 51 assembly seats spread across 17 states. The BJP and its allies held nearly 30 of these seats, while the Congress won 12. The rest were with regional parties. Uttar Pradesh is seeing a mini assembly election of sorts, with bypolls on 11 seats,
The other states where bypolls will be held are Gujarat (6 seats), Bihar (5 seats), Assam and Punjab (4 seats each), Kerala (5 seats), Sikkim (3 seats), Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu (2 seats each) and one seat each in Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Puducherry, Meghalaya and Telangana.
Under the seat sharing agreement between Maharashtra's ruling alliance, the BJP will get the top post and Uddhav Thackeray's party will get the deputy Chief Minister's post. The BJP has announced that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis would continue to helm the government.
For Mr Fadnavis's deputy, the Sena's choice is likely to be Uddhav Thackeray's 29-year-old son Aaditya Thackeray. Thackeray Senior, however, has played down the possibility, saying a politician doesn't get the top job after taking "the first step in politics".
Aaditya Thackeray is the first in his family to contest elections in the five decades since his grandfather Bal Thackeray founded the Shiv Sena. He is likely to get a walkover in Worli - a Sena stronghold where the opposition candidate, the NCP's Sachin Ahir, crossed over recently.
In Haryana, the ruling BJP is locked in contest with the Congress and the fledgling JJP (Jannayak Janta Party) for the 90 assembly seats. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has set a target of 75 of 90 assembly seats. Last time, the BJP won 48 seats, the Congress 17.
The Dushyant Chautala-led JJP, a breakaway faction of Om Prakash Chautala's Indian National Lok Dal, is hoping for an improvement in its prospects following its poor show in the Lok Sabha elections. The party was formed after a feud in the Chautala clan in December.
For this round of state election, the BJP, instead of focusing on local issues, has built its campaign on national issues like the end to special status in Jammu and Kashmir and the National Register of Citizens, which the centre wants to take across the country.
The opposition Congress has focussed on local issues, including jobs and economy. But its campaign was lacklustre in face of the BJP's high-voltage show where senior leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party chief Amit Shah and Yogi Adityanath addressed multiple rallies. In Maharashtra, there was no joint campaign of the NCP and Congress.