Campaign ends for Maharashtra Assembly elections, all eyes on poll day on October 21

The 23 day high octane election campaigning that began on September 27 has ended on Saturday evening leaving the likes of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar completely drenched at the fag-end of it. It is now in the hands of the 8.97 crore electorate to decide the fate 3,237 candidates in the fray for 288 Assembly constituencies and one by-election for Satara Lok Sabha constituency that will go to polls on October 21, Monday.

Out of the 3,237 candidate’s in the poll fray, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has fielded candidates in 262 constituencies, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 164 constituencies, the CPI in 16, CPI-M in 8, Congress in 147, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) in 101, NCP in 121, Shiv Sena in 126, Other Registered Parties 892 candidates and 1,400 candidates are contesting as Independents. Out of the total 3,237 candidates, 3,001 are male, 235 are female and 1 is Others (Transgender).

Nanded South assembly constituency has the maximum number of candidates in the poll fray. There are 38 candidates in the poll fray here. While the least number of candidates, just 3 candidates are in the poll fray in Chiplun assembly constituency.

The smallest assembly constituency area wise is 178 Dharavi (SC) which is just 1 Sq. Km in size. As against this the largest constituency in terms of area, is 69 Aheri (ST) which is 2,282.7 Sq. Kms in area.

The smallest constituency in terms of size of electorate is 180 Wardha which has an electorate size of 2,77,980. Whereas, the largest constituency in terms of size of electorate is 188 Panvel assembly constituency which has a voter population of 5,54,827.

The ECI has deployed more than three lakh security personnel for the conduct of elections. The state government has already declared a paid leave for all the eligible voters to cast their ballot on October 21. For the first time the poll body has provided facility of Anganwadi Sevika’s at polling booths so that mothers of infants can cast their ballot. For the first time, the ECI will be conducting Live Webcasting of the voting in 9,673 polling booths out of the total 96,661 polling booths in the state. In all the ECI will be using 3.06 lakh EVMs and 1.35 lakh VVPAT machines on poll day.

All the 288 assembly constituencies in Maharashtra have a voter population in excess of 2 lakh voters. Out of the total population of 12.43 crore of Maharashtra, the total voter population is 8.97 crore. This includes 4.68 crore male voters, 4.28 female voters and 2,634 Others (transgenders). The total voter population also includes – 5,560 NRI voters and 1.17 lakh service voters. Out of the total voter population of 8.97 crore voters, Voter ID Cards (EPIC Cards) have been issued to 8.68 crore voters. It is interesting to note here that out of the 2,634 Others category voters, Voter ID cards have been issued to 2,633 transgender voters.

In terms of age and sex wise composition of the electorate of 8.97 crore, 3.25 crore are in the age group of 40 to 60 years, 3.13 crore are in the age group of 25 to 40 years, 1.51 crore are above 60 years of age and 1.06 crore are in the age group of 18 to 25 years. Out of the total 2,634 transgender voters, 894 are in the age group of 25 to 40 years, 611 are in the age group of 18 to 25 years, 349 are in the age group of 40 to 60 years and just 48 of transgender voters are above the age of 60 years. Besides this about 62,366 voters have registered as visually challenged in 23,101 polling booths across the 288 assembly constituencies.