Maharashtra polls: Cong fields Ashish Deshmukh against BJP's Fadnavis

With days left for Maharashtra assembly polls, Congress on Thursday has fielded former BJP MLA Ashish Deshmukh as its candidate from Nagpur South West seat against Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fnavis. name of Deshmukh, who is a strong supporter of demand for a separate state of Vidarbha, was anunced in list of 19 candidates finalised on Thursday night. His far Ranjit Deshmukh (former Maharashtra Presh Congress Committee chief and a state minister) was  defeated by Fnavis from Nagpur West constituency in 2004 assembly election. Ashish Deshmukh was elected from Katol Assembly seat from BJP in year 2014. However, he resigned from saffron party in October last year. Deshmukh and Fandavis will file ir mination papers in Nagpur on Friday. 

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Maharashtra elections

Maharashtra which has 288 Assembly seats will go to polls on 21 October 2019, Election Commission anunced on Saturday on. Maharashtra assembly elections will be held in a single-phase and counting procedure would be conducted on October 24. Election Commission chief Sunil Arora also anunced that last date of mination is on October 4. Arora also informed that parties in Maharashtra h wanted polls to be concluded by Dhanteras. 

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Here is detailed schedule:

• Issue of tification for both states (Haryana and Maharashtra) - 27 September
• last date of mination - 4 October
• Scrutiny of mination -5 October
• Withdrawal of mination- 7 October
• Polling date for both states - 21 October (Single phase)
• Counting of votes - 24 October
• Conclusion of polls - 27 October

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Maharashtra election alliance

While BJP and Shiv Sena has t yet anunced seat sharing, NCP and Congress will contest on equal number of seats. Currently, BJP holds 122 seats while Shiv Sena holds 63 seats. However, Shiv Sena and BJP have confirmed that y will contest  Maharashtra Assembly elections jointly. In 2014 elections, Shiv Sena and BJP h contested assembly elections separately, as seat-sharing talks between two parties collapsed at last moment. two parties came toger after elections to form government with BJP winning 122 seats and Shiv Sena with 63.

(with PTI inputs)

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