Maharashtra Election Results 2019 Highlights: Shiv Sena-BJP seal Mumbai match with a six

According to officials, maximum counting rounds of 35 each will be held in Palghar and Bhiwandi seats, followed by 33 in Bhandara-Gondiya and Thane, and 32 in Beed and Shirur.

A total of 98,430 electronic voting machines (EVMs) were used for the four-phase polls in the state where counting is taking place at 48 counting centres in 38 locations from 8 am, an election official said.

Sharad Pawar left Baramati for his daughter Supriya Sule, who managed to hold on to the family stronghold even during the 2014 Modi wave. But the victory margin had come down drastically. This time, BJP has fielded Kanchan Kool, the wife of RSPS MLA from Daund, Rahul Kool, in a signal that the saffron party is keen on a direct fight with the Maratha strongman and his family in their own backyard.

The exercise of counting postal ballots manually will itself take a couple of hours at least, an EC official said.

The fight for western Maharashtra, the sugar belt that’s a power centre in state politics, will be the most keenly watched today. The saffron alliance, which had won 6 of the 10 seats here in the 2014 elections, faces an uphill task in the region. For the Congress-NCP alliance, this will be a crucial fight in order to try and regain control over the region which represents their political base.

Local boy Nitin Gadkari, widely praised for his work as highways minister in the Modi government, is seeking another term from the Orange City and he is confident that his victory margin, which was 2.84 lakh votes in 2014, will be far bigger this time. His rival, BJP rebel Nana Patole, quit after publicly criticising the central BJP leadership in 2017.

The Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) jointly led by Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar and MIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi may have damaged to some extent the opposition Congress-NCP combine in a few constituencies. "The VBA has the potential to win both Akola and Aurangabad, and the party would prove to be a spoiler for Congress in 5 to 6 seats,” feels an expert.

Union ministers Nitin Gadkari (Nagpur), Hansraj Ahir (Chandrapur), Subhash Bhamre (Dhule), Anant Geete (Raigad), Maharashtra Congress chief Ashok Chavan (Nanded) and former Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde (Solapur) were among the key contestants from the state.

The voter turnout this time was 60.80 per cent, slightly up from 60.32 per cent in 2014, as per official data. Maharashtra, which has the second highest number of 48 Lok Sabha seats in the country after Uttar Pradesh's 80, went to polls in four phases on April 11, 18, 23 and 29 and a total of 867 candidates were in the fray.

A total of 98,430 electronic voting machines (EVMs) were used for the four-phase polls in the state where counting will take place at 48 counting centres in 38 locations. According to officials, maximum counting rounds of 35 each will be held in Palghar and Bhiwandi seats, followed by 33 in Bhandara-Gondiya and Thane, and 32 in Beed and Shirur.

MNS chief Raj Thackeray's aggressive campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi had become a talking point in the state. However, experts say that MNS votes will never get transferred to the Congress-NCP as there is much difference in the idealogy of these two parties. Moreover, exit polls predict that Congress-NCP could reach, at the most, the figure of 14.

Most exit polls have predicted that majority of the 48 seats in the state will go to the BJP-Sena combine, although the number is slightly less that what it was in 2014. A poll of several exit polls projects 37 seats for the NDA and only 11 seats for the UPA.

The BJP-Shiv Sena combine, which had swept the 2014 elections with 42 of the 48 seats, had to battle mounting agrarian distress and edgy caste/reservation issues in the 2019 elections. While rural discontent is a big factor, it remains to be seen whether the NCP, which has been on the backfoot after many of its leaders joined the BJP, and a shaky Congress can lure back their votebank. Stay tuned for TOI's counting day coverage to find out.