Amid heavy rains in Maharashtra's Latur on Monday, voters arrived to vote for the Assembly elections in their polling booths. Some parts of Osmanabad and Latur districts in Marathwada region, south Konkan, western and south-central parts of the state witnessed drizzle in the early morning hours on Monday, an official from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) informed.

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Cyclonic conditions the cause of rains

The IMD has predicted a thunderstorm with lightning and gusty winds at isolated places in Osmanabad, Kolhapur, Satara, Sangli, Solapur, Beed, Sindhudurg, Pune, Ratnagiri and Raigad districts on the polling day. The weather department said a cyclonic circulation developed off the southern coast of Maharashtra was bringing rains now despite the complete withdrawal of the south-west monsoon last week. The south-west monsoon lasts from June to September in the state. This time, however, the rains have lasted long.

No power, but votes on

Meanwhile, a power outage was reported at a polling booth in Pune's Shivaji Nagar on Monday morning. Poll booth officials were seen using candles to check voter rolls and make the entries. Voting nonetheless continued as evident with a long queue at the booth.

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Maharashtra Assembly polls

In Maharashtra, where Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis-led 'Mahayuti' alliance of BJP, Shiv Sena and smaller parties is against the 'Maha-agadhi' led by the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party, a total of 8,98,39,600 people, including 4,28,43,635 women, are eligible to vote. As many as 3,237 candidates, including 235 women, are contesting in 288 seats and 96,661 polling booths are in place with 6.5 lakh staff for the voting exercise.

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While the BJP has based its campaign in Maharashtra around the abrogation of Article 370, corruption charges on NCP and Congress leaders among others, the opposition tried to corner the BJP on the handling of the economy. The BJP, which is seeking a second straight term under CM Fadnavis in Maharashtra, is contesting 164 seats, which include candidates of smaller allies contesting on its lotus symbol, while Sena has fielded candidates on 126 seats. On the other hand, the Congress and the NCP are contesting on an equal number of seats, that is 125 each.

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