2019 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election
The 2019 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election was held on 21 October 2019 to elect all 288 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. After a 61.4% turnout in the election, the ruling National Democratic Alliance of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena won a majority. Following differences over the government formation, the alliance was dissolved, precipitating a political crisis. Since a council of ministers had not been formed after no party could manage to form the government, President's rule had been 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 of them 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, with Uddhav Thackeray as the Chief Minister.
Background
The previous Assembly elections were held in October 2014. After the election, Bharatiya Janata Party formed a majority government, with Devendra Fadnavis becoming the Chief Minister.Election schedule
The Election Commission announced the election dates for the Assembly elections in Maharashtra.| Poll Event | Schedule |
| Notification date | 27 September 2019 |
| Last date for filing out nominations | 4 October 2019 |
| Scrutiny of nominations | 5 October 2019 |
| Last date for withdrawal of Candidature | 7 October 2019 |
| Date of Poll | 21 October 2019 |
| Counting of Votes | 24 October 2019 |
Political parties and campaign
;National Democratic AlliancePre-election alliance of National Democratic Alliance was formed between Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena. Later, however, SHS left NDA and joined UPA seeing inability to share power with each other.
;United Progressive Alliance
Pre-election alliance of United Progressive Alliance was formed with Indian National Congress and Nationalist Congress Party. INC filled nominations on 145 seats and NCP on 123. Other parties that supported the UPA alliance were Raju Shetti-led Swabhimani Shetkari Saghtana, the Peasants and Workers Party, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Vikas Aghadi and Ravi Rana-led Swabhiman Sanghatana. The opposition finalized common nominee of 2 seats of Mankhatao and Kothrud constituency. Peoples Republican Party and Bahujan Republican Socialist Party will be fielding their candidates on the symbols of INC and NCP. The Samajwadi Party later rescinded its support for the alliance, to contest for 7 seats separately instead. 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. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen will be contesting from 44 seats, mostly from Muslim predominant constituencies. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena will be contesting from 103 seats.
A total of 5543 nominations were received by Election Commission through out the state of which about 3239 candidatures were left after others were rejected or had their nominations withdrawn. The Chiplun constituency has the least candidates, whereas Nanded South constituency had the maximum candidates.
Voter statistics
Surveys and polls
Subsequent to the election, pre-polling and exit polling in all cases but one, was seen to have significantly over-estimated the vote share and seat projections to the ruling right-wing NDA coalition.Vote share
Seat projections
Results
Results by alliance and party
Region-wise break up
Results by constituency
Aftermath
After declaration of election result on 24 october 2019, Shiv Sena declined to support BJP for the government formation demanding equal share in the power which was promised by BJP during elections as claimed by shivsena and withdrew from Maha-Yuti Alliance. As no political party was able to prove the majority in the assembly, the President's rule was imposed in the state following recommendation by the Governor on 12 November 2019.Ultimately, the combination of largest legislative party BJP and a faction of the NCP agreed to form a grand coalition with Devendra Fadnavis returning as Chief Minister. Ajit Pawar of NCP was sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister. But the NCP national leadership has rebuffed this move and announced that it will not support BJP. On Tue, 26th Nov, Devendra Fadnavis resigned at press conference in Mumbai.
On Thursday, November 28th Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackarey was sworn in as chief minister.
After the announcement of Shivsena, NCP and Congress Alliance, Shiv Sena Leader Ramesh Solanki left Shivsena