Maharashtra’s 65.1% Voter Turnout Is 2nd Highest 1990s, Highest In A Decade

The 65.1 per cent voter turnout Wednesday for the Maharashtra election was the second highest in the state since the 1995 election, when a massive 71.5 per cent was recorded.

It was also the highest in a decade; the state recorded 63.4 per cent voter turnout for the 2004 and 2014 elections. From the high of 1995 voter turnout fell sharply to 61 per cent for the 1999 election and slipped further to 59.7 per cent for 2009, before the uptick to 63.4 per cent in 2014. In 2019 it was 61.4 per cent.

The increased voter turnout has been flagged by both the ruling and opposition alliances as ‘proof positive’ that their side will emerge triumphant when votes are counted on Saturday. Conventional wisdom suggests high voter turnout is bad news for the incumbent.

Maharashtra Voter Turnout: Highs And Lows
Among the various districts, Naxal-affected Gadircholi recorded a high of nearly 70 per cent, as did Nashik, while Mumbai, the state capital (and the financial capital of the country) saw just 54 per cent. But even that was an improvement; in 2019, Mumbai’s voter turnout was 50.67 per cent.

The lower than expected turnout in Mumbai underlined concerns over urban areas; the overall figure for cities was only one point higher than the 48.4 per cent from five years ago. Within Mumbai the Colaba seat – part of the South Mumbai Lok Sabha seat – only 44.5 per cent.

The highest was in Bhandup West with 61.1 per cent with Borivali and Mulund coming in at 60.5 per cent each. The Colaba and Mulund seats are held by the Bharatiya Janata Party, while Bhandup West was won by the undivided Shiv Sena in the 2019 election.

And suburban Mumbai recorded an abysmal 39.34 per cent turnout.

In the Marathwada region, where there are 46 seats, 20 seats recorded a turnout in excess of 70 per cent. Of these 20, 17 are currently represented by the Mahayuti alliance. The average turnout in the Marathwada region – spread across the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Beed, Hingoli, Jalna, Latur, Nanded, Osmanabad, and Parbhani districts – was 69.65 per cent.

Maharashtra Election Exit Polls
Voting for the 288 seats in the Maharashtra Assembly – the last major election this year – took place in a single phase on Wednesday. The majority mark is 145. Exit polls have given the ruling Mahayuti – consisting of the BJP and the Sena and Nationalist Congress Party factions led by Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar – an edge.

The Mahayuti 150 seats and only 125 to the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi, consisting of the Congress and the Shinde and NCP factions led by Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar. Of those nine, five believe the Mahayuti will emerge an undisputed winner.

The sixth, seventh, and eighth predict a tight race with neither the MVA nor the Mahayuti a clear winner, and the ninth suggests the MVA, in fact, will win this election. Ahead of the counting of votes on Saturday political leaders from all six major parties have been talking up their respective alliance’s chances of victory.

Among them, for the BJP, outgoing Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis pointed triumphantly at the increased voting percentage across Maharashtra and said, “…whenever voting percentage increases, it benefits the BJP. I am confident we will benefit this time too.”

On the other side was Sena MP Sanjay Raut, ex-Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s troubleshooter, who called exit polls a “fraud” and insisted the MVA will win this election.

Mr Raut pointed to wrong predictions for the Haryana and J&K elections, and the April-June federal election, in which the BJP was widely expected to cross the 400-seat mark but was pegged by back by the Congress-led INDIA bloc, which includes the Thackeray Sena.

What Happened In 2019?
The 2019 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 Mr Shinde that ousted the MVA. He led Sena MLAs into a deal with the BJP, forcing Mr Thackeray to resign and was named 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.

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.