Mahayuti leaders Devendra Fadnavis, Eknath Shinde, and Ajit Pawar (File).
The ruling Mahayuti will win the 2024 Maharashtra election, five of nine exit polls indicated Wednesday evening, shortly after the close of single-phase voting in the state.
An average of all eight gave the alliance an average of 150 (eight over majority) of 288 Assembly seats, with the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi given only 125 and non-aligned parties and independents 13.
Three exit polls predict a hung Assembly; i.e., they believe neither alliance will be able to secure a clear-enough advantage to form the next government, at least without bargaining, jostling and, most likely, support from smaller parties and/or independents.
A ninth has bucked the trend entirely, giving the MVA a massive win.
But a health warning: exit polls often get it wrong.
Victory For BJP's Coalition, Say 5 Exit Polls
The Matrize, Chanakya Strategies, Times Now-JVC, Poll Diary, and Peoples Pulse, exit polls give the Mahayuti - Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party - 122-195 seats.
Matrize has given the Mahayuti between 150 and 170 seats, Peoples Pulse between 175 and 195 seats, Chanakya Strategies between 152 and 160, and Times Now-JVC 150-167. Poll Diary is the least certain of these five, giving it between 122 and 186 seats, which translates into an average of 152.
The opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi - the Congress and the Sena and NCP factions of Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar - will get only 69 to 138, according to these five exit polls.
MVA leaders Uddhav Thackeray, Mallikarjun Kharge, and Sharad Pawar (File).
Broken down per poll, the MVA will get 107-125 seats according to Times Now-JVC, 110-130 according to Matrize, and 130-138 according to Chanakya Strategies. The harshest predictions are from Peoples Pulse, which gives it only 85-112 seats, and Poll Diary, which offers only 69 to 121.
A Hung House, Say 3 Others
However, three other polls - P-Marq, Dainik Bhaskar, and the Lokshahi Marathi-Rudra - believe neither the Mahayuti nor the MVA may secure enough for an outright win.
P-Marq expects the Mahayuti to get 137 to 157 seats and the MVA between 126 and 146, while Lokshahi Marathi-Rudra thinks the BJP alliance will get 128-142 and the MVA 125-140.
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The Dainik Bhaskar exit poll gives the Mahayuti 125-140 seats and the MVA 135-150.
P-Marq and Dainik Bhaskar may each be read as giving Mahayuti and the MVA a narrow edge, handing each side a possible upper score over 145 but the margins are very fine.
Congress' Alliance To Storm Back
Electoral Edge says the Maha Vikas Aghadi will return to power on the back of a crushing win, sweeping 150 seats and leaving its rival alliance just 118.
Non-Mahayuti, MVA Scores?
Non-aligned (at this stage) parties and independent candidates, which could play a significant role in the event of a hung Assembly, have been given an average score of 12 seats.
That may not sound like much but given how tight the margins could be (according to P-Marq, Dainik Bhaskar, and the Lokshahi Marathi-Rudra) they could emerge as 'king-makers'.
The biggest predictions here are from Dainik Bhaskar and Lokshahi Marathi-Rudra, which expect they will pick up between 18-23 and 20-25 seats. Poll Diary and Times Now-JVC peg this at 10-27 and 13-14, while Electoral Edge has given a flat score of 20.
Matrize, P-Marq, and Peoples Pulse have gone the other way, suggesting non-aligned parties may not really be a factor. P-Marq gives them between two and eight seats, while Matrize says eight to 10 and Peoples Pulse seven to 12.
What Happened In 2019?
The 2019 Maharashtra election resulted in a thumping win for the BJP and (then undivided) Sena; the saffron party won 105 seats (down 17 from 2014) and its ally 56 (down seven).
However, two long-time allies fell out, quite spectacularly, in the following days after they failed to agree a power-sharing deal. Mr Thackeray then led his Sena into a surprise alliance with the Congress and Sharad Pawar's NCP (then also undivided) to shut out a furious BJP.
Much to the surprise of many, the ruling tripartite alliance lasted for nearly three years despite the divergent political beliefs and ideologies of the Sena and the Congress-NCP.
Eventually, it was an internal rebellion led by Sena leader Eknath Shinde that ousted the MVA government. Mr Shinde led Sena lawmakers into a deal with the BJP, forcing Mr Thackeray to resign and allowing himself to be named as the new Chief Minister.
The NCP split a year later in a near-identical process that saw Ajit Pawar and lawmakers loyal to him joining the BJP-Shinde Sena, and he then became a Deputy Chief Minister.
Since then, Maharashtra politics has been roiled in controversy that extended to the Supreme Court, which heard petitions and cross-petitions on disqualification of MLAs and, in the build-up to this election, pleas on which Sena and NCP faction is the 'real' one.
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