The 2024 Maharashtra Assembly Elections saw the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led Mahayuti alliance winning 230 seats out of 288 seats. The opposition Maha Vikas Agadi alliance won a mere 51 seats. In the winning alliance, the BJP turned out to be the largest single party winning 132 seats versus 105 seats in the 2019 elections. BJPs’s vote share also increased from 25.75 per cent in 2019 versus 26.67 per cent in 2024. Indian National Congress’ vote share plummeted to 12.42 per cent compared to 15.87 per cent in the 2019 elections.
BJP’s alliance partners, the Shiv Sena (Shinde) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) won 57 and 41 seats respectively. In the MVA alliance, Shiv Sena UBT secured 20 seats, INC won 16 seats and NCP Sharad Pawar won 10 seats.
Highest And Closest Margin
Shirpur in the Dhule district saw the biggest win by vote margin. Kashiram Vechan Pawara of the BJP won in Shirpur by 1,45,944 votes against Jitendra Thakur who was contesting as an independent candidate. The second biggest victory was seen in Satara where BJP’s Shivendraraje Bhonsale triumphed with a margin of 1,42,124 votes against Amit Kadam of Shiv Sena UBT.
Malegaon Central seat saw the closest win where Mufti Mohammad Ismail Abdul Khalique of the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) won with a margin of 142 votes against the Indian Secular Largest Assembly of Maharashtra’s Asif Rasheed. The next closest margin was in Sakoli where INC’s senior leader Nana Patole won by a margin of 208 votes against BJP’s Avinash Bramankar.
Alongside Nana Patole some of the prominent leaders of the state who tasted victory include chief minister (CM) Eknath Shinde, Devendra Fadnavis, Ajit Pawar, Aditya Thackerey, etc.
Eknath Shinde won from Kopri-Pachpakhadi with a margin of 1,20,717 votes against his mentor Anant Dighe’s nephew Kedar Dighe. Former CM Devendra Fadnavis won in Nagpur South West with a margin of 39,710 votes against INC’s Prafulla Gudadhe. Ajit Pawar won in his bastion of Baramati against his nephew Yugendra Pawar and Aditya Thackerey triumphed in the Worli seat against Milind Deora who joined Shiv Sena Shinde a few weeks before the elections. Thackeray won with a margin of 8,801 votes.
With Mahayuti winning the elections, the focus is now shifting to the selection of the Chief Minister. Union Home Minister Amit Shah had previously stated that the decision would be made by the Mahayuti partners once the election results were declared. On November 10, Shah announced, "After the elections, all three alliance partners will decide on the CM post." Following the election results on November 23, CM Eknath Shinde said the decision regarding the Chief Minister's position would be made collectively.
