New Delhi [India], October 18 : Congress leader Supriya Shrinate expressed confidence in the party's victory in the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections highlighting the issues plaguing the state, including widespread corruption, the Pune and Badlapur incidents, and the controversy surrounding the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj statue.
The Congress leader noted that the BJP lost 28 seats in the recent Lok Sabha elections and a similar outcome is expected this time around.
Questioning the BJP's leadership in Jharkhand, Srinate pointed out that they don't have a strong local leader, having lost Arjun Munda in the previous election..
"I am confident that the way we performed in the Lok Sabha polls and they (BJP) lost 28 seats, the same will happen now. What is BJP taking about Jharkhand, when they don't even have a leader there? There was Arjun Munda but he lost the election. They are having to import a leader," she said.
"In Maharashtra, the way there is widespread corruption, Pune and Badlapur incidents and what happened with the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj statue...We are confident that our leadership will be there in Maharashtra. We have our CEC on Sunday and everything will be decided," the Congress leader added.
Notably, Maha Vikas Aghadi is the alliance of Congress, Shiv Sena-UBT (Uddhav Thackeray's faction) and NCP-SP (Sharad Pawar's faction) and are up against ruling Mahayuti -- the alliance of BJP, NCP and Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) in Maharashtra.
Assembly elections in Maharashtra will be held in a single phase on November 20, the Election Commission of India announced on Tuesday (October 15, 2024). With this, the political parties have begun gearing up for an election that will be unprecedented in many ways.
In the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly polls, the Congress and unified Shiv Sena won 154 out of 288 seats as part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition.
In the Lok Sabha election held this year, MVA won 30 of the state's 48 Lok Sabha seats. The ruling alliance won 17. One seat went to an Independent candidate.
Meanwhile, the 81-seat Jharkhand Assembly is going to elections November 13 and 20, the ECI said.
A total of 2.60 crore voters are eligible to cast votes in Jharkhand and there are 1.31 crore male and 1.29 crore female voters. The state has 11.84 lakh first-time voters.
Votes will be counted in the two states on November 23.