Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024: With 75 seats, dominance over coastal belt crucial to tilting power scales

Mumbai: The serene coastal belt of Maharashtra, including Mumbai, offers an interesting backdrop for a showdown between Mahayuti and MVA alliances in the next month's assembly elections, especially between two rival Shiv Senas.

The most urbanised and industrial region, including the Mumbai metropolitan area, sends 75 MLAs to the assembly and 12 members to Lok Sabha.

The coastal Konkan division in Maharashtra, spread from Sindhudurg to Mumbai, also covers Palghar, Thane, Raigad and Ratnagiri districts.

Voting will be held on all 288 assembly constituencies in Maharashtra on November 20 and results will be declared on November 23.

In the recent Lok Sabha polls, the Mahayuti alliance of Shiv Sena, BJP, and NCP, bagged seven seats.

The BJP triumphed in Palghar, Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, and Mumbai North, while the NCP, led by Ajit Pawar, had a face-saver in Raigad where its leader Sunil Tatkare retained his seat.

In the upcoming polls, former Union Minister Narayan Rane, who won the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Lok Sabha seat, is set to play a crucial role for the BJP in the Konkan region.

In Thane City, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's Kopri-Pachpakdi constituency and Worli in Mumbai, where Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray seeks reelection, are poised to be pivotal battlegrounds.

The contest primarily shapes up as a rivalry between Shiv Sena factions, raising the stakes significantly.

Urban issues are at the forefront, with housing, urban poverty, and infrastructure challenges dominating discussions as the region copes with rapid population growth.

Meanwhile, the Congress party's influence has waned over the years, particularly in Mumbai, where it has ceded ground to Shiv Sena (UBT) within the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA).

The 75 constituencies are spread across tribal-dominated Palghar (6 seats), Thane (18), including six segments in Thane city, Mumbai (36). Raigad, Ratnagiri, and Sindhudurg districts account for 15 constituencies.

The upcoming assembly elections present a complex political landscape, marked by rivalries and shifting alliances. The state’s electoral map also includes the districts of Vidarbha, North Maharashtra, Marathwada, and Western Maharashtra.

As far as regional dynamics are concerned, Vidarbha with 62 assembly constituencies is politically significant, home to key leaders like Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis and opposition leader Vijay Wadettiwar, state Congress chief Nana Patole and his BJP counterpart Chandrashekar Bawankule.

The Congress aims to regain lost ground against a BJP that has made substantial inroads in the past decade, with pressing issues such as irrigation and farmer distress.

A hotbed of Maratha quota agitation, the Marathwada region has 46 assembly segments and is expected to see a contest primarily between Congress and Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT).

Known as the onion belt, the North Maharashtra region holds 47 seats, with key issues centring on agriculture. Heavyweights from various parties, including BJP’s Girish Mahajan, NCP’s Chhagan Bhujbal, and Shiv Sena leader Gulabrao Patil, dominate the political landscape.

The Congress had won Dhule and Nandurbar Lok Sabha constituencies from this region which saw the emergence of Kunal Patil as a party leader.

With 58 assembly seats, a high-stakes rivalry is anticipated between Sharad Pawar and his estranged nephew and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, particularly in Baramati.

A riveting battle is likely on the cards in the Baramati assembly constituency between Ajit Pawar and his nephew Yugendra Pawar in the event the latter is fielded by the NCP (SP).

The assembly elections are viewed as an acid test for the BJP, which has enjoyed dominance in Maharashtra over the past decade.

Following disappointing Lok Sabha results in Maharashtra in 2024 where its tally fell to 9 from the previous 23, the party is under pressure to reclaim its standing, with the Haryana victory acting as a morale-booster for the party cadre.

Emerging from the shadow of Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray, the BJP won 122 seats in 2014 but saw a decline to 105 seats in alliance with the undivided Shiv Sena in 2019.

Conversely, the Congress, buoyed by its recent performance in Lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra, aims to solidify its position within the MVA alliance and increase its seat count.

In the 2019 assembly elections, Congress had won 44 seats despite several leaders crossing over to BJP.

The poll outcome five years ago reflected the state's complex political landscape in regional tallies.

After the Shiv Sena split in June 2022, two byelections were held in which Sena (UBT) won the Andheri (east) seat in Mumbai and Congress wrested the Kasba segment from BJP.