The 2019 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election was held on 21 October 2019 to elect all 288 members of the state's Legislative Assembly.^[1] After a 61.4% turnout in the election, the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena (SHS) won a majority.^[2] Following differences over the government formation, the alliance was dissolved, precipitating a political crisis.

Quick Facts All 288 seats to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly 145 seats needed for a majority, Turnout ...

2019 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election

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All 288 seats to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly 145 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	61.44% ( 1.94%)
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Devendra Fadnavis Uddhav Thackeray Ajit Pawar Party BJP SHS NCP Alliance NDA NDA UPA Leader's seat Nagpur South West MLC Baramati Last election 122 63 41 Seats won 105 56 54 Seat change 17 7 13 Popular vote 14,199,375 9,049,789 9,216,919 Percentage 25.75% 16.41% 16.71% Swing 2.06 pp 3.04 pp 0.53 pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Balasaheb Thorat Waris Pathan Raj Thackeray Party INC AIMIM MNS Alliance UPA Leader's seat Sangamner Byculla (lost) Did not contest Last election 42 2 1 Seats won 44 2 1 Seat change 2 Popular vote 8,752,199 737,888 1,242,135 Percentage 15.87% 1.34% 2.25% Swing 2.07 pp 0.41 pp 0.92 pp
All Party Results Seats Won by the Bharatiya Janata Party Seats won by the Shiv Sena Seats won by the NCP Seats won by the INC
Chief Minister before election Devendra Fadnavis BJP Elected Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis BJP

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Since a council of ministers had not been formed after no party could manage to form the government, President's rule was imposed in the state. On 23 November 2019, Devendra Fadnavis was sworn in as the Chief Minister and Ajit Pawar was sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister. However, both resigned on 26 November 2019 before the floor test and on 28 November 2019, Shiv Sena, NCP, and Congress formed the government under a new alliance Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), with Uddhav Thackeray as the Chief Minister.

On 29 June 2022, Uddhav Thackeray resigned as Chief Minister after a faction of MLAs led by Eknath Shinde split from Shiv Sena and allied with the BJP. Subsequently, Eknath Shinde was sworn in as Chief Minister and Devendra Fadnavis as the deputy Chief minister.

The results were out on 21 October 2019 with the Sena-BJP Alliance getting majority, enough to form the government. However, Shiv Sena and BJP had a fall out which compelled Shiv Sena to form an alliance with the opposition,^{[citation needed]} ending their alliance. The new alliance, named Maha Vikas Aghadi, consists of Congress, Shiv Sena and NCP forming the Government

The Election Commission announced the election dates for the Assembly elections in Maharashtra.^[3]

National Democratic Alliance

Pre-election alliance of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was formed between Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena (SHS). Later, however, SHS left NDA and formed Three-Party Alliance Government Maha Vikas Aghadi seeing inability to share power with each other.

United Progressive Alliance

Pre-election alliance of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was formed with Indian National Congress (INC) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). INC filled nominations on 145 seats and NCP on 123. Other parties that supported the UPA alliance were Raju Shetti-led Swabhimani Shetkari Saghtana (4 seats), the Peasants and Workers Party (6 seats), Samajwadi Party (3 seats), Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (3 seats) and Ravi Rana-led Swabhiman Sanghatana (1 seat). The opposition finalised common nominee of 2 seats of Mankhatao and Kothrud constituency.^[4] Peoples Republican Party (3 seats) and Bahujan Republican Socialist Party (2 seats) will be fielding their candidates on the symbols of INC and NCP.^[4] The Samajwadi Party later rescinded its support for the alliance, to contest for 7 seats separately instead.^[5] Shiv Sena later joined UPA after leaving NDA.

Others

Various prominent parties in the Maharashtra's political scenario did not join hands with either of the two alliances. This includes Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi that will be contesting all 288 seats.^[6] All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen will be contesting from 44 seats, mostly from Muslim predominant constituencies.^[7] Maharashtra Navnirman Sena will be contesting from 103 seats.^[8]

A total of 5543 nominations were received by Election Commission throughout the state of which about 3239 candidatures were left after others were rejected or had their nominations withdrawn. The Chiplun constituency ha the least candidates (3 candidates), whereas Nanded South constituency had the maximum candidates (38 candidates).^[9]

On 30 September 2019, The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena announced that they have finalised their Seat sharing agreements with each other and agreed to fight under the banner of MahaYuti Alliance. Few days before, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had visited Matoshree (Uddhav Thackeray's Home) and met Uddhav Thackeray for the same.

The parties however were clashing on the subject of 50-50 CM sharing formula.

The campaign was led by Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis and then Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray

On 16 September 2019, the Indian National Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party sealed their deal for seat sharing arrangements for the elections, both the parties contested on 125 Seats and kept 38 seats for Independents/Smaller Parties, This comes after the INC-NCP lost many heavyweight leaders joining BJP-Sena.

Both the parties were unclear about the CM Candidate from the Alliance.

Subsequent to the election, pre-polling and exit polling in all cases but one (India Today-Axis exit poll), was seen to have significantly over-estimated the vote share and seat projections to the ruling right-wing NDA coalition.^[11]