Polling through 60 yrs: State saw highest polling of 71.60 per cent in 1995, lowest in 1980 | Mumbai News
In the last sixty years the highest ever polling in Maharashtra took place in the 1995, recording 71.69 per cent.
The mandate clearly altered the permutation and combination resulting in the ouster of Congress, with an undivided Shiv Sena and BJP comfortably coming to power, with chief minister Manohar Joshi and deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde. While Joshi belonged to Shiv Sena, Munde was the mass leader of BJP.
After the creation of Maharashtra on May 1, 1960 through the linguistic state reorganisation act, the first assembly elections took place in 1962. The Congress was then the unchallenged dominant political force under then veteran chief minister Yashwantrao Balwantrao Chavan.
From 1962 to 2024, fourteen assembly elections have taken place in Maharashtra.
Interestingly, political change from the Congress to the Shiv Sena-BJP-led government (1995) also marked the highest ever jump in polling percentage of 9.43 per cent. In the 1990 Assembly polls, total voting registered was 62.26 per cent, which increased to 71.69 per cent in 1995.
While the average voting percentage in Maharashtra in the last six decades saw polling above 60 per cent, it fell short of this thrice — 53.30 per cent in 1980, 59.17 per cent in 1985 and 59.68 per cent in 2009.
Although Shiv Sena under the leadership of Bal Thackeray came into being since June 19,1966, BJP, which was carved out of the esrtwhile Jana Sangha, became a full fledged political party on April 6, 1980.
In late 1980s, Shiv Sena-BJP formed the coalition government fighting against the Congress. On June 10, 1999 Sharad Pawar parted with the Congress to form a separate party, NCP. Since then the state saw political battle between two fronts — Shiv Sena/BJP versus Congress/NCP, which was further fragmented with splits in two regional parties in 2022 and 2023. At present the state has three pre-poll partners — Congress, NCP (SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT) versus BJP, Shiv Sena, NCP.
The highest ever decline in voting was seen in the 1980 Assembly polls, when the vote share came down to 53.30 pc from 67.59 per cent in 1978.
In the past six decades, the Shiv Sena/BJP was government from 1995-1999 and 2014-2019. In its second term, the saffron coalition was led by BJP chief minister Devendra Fadnavis. In 2022-2024, The BJP-led Shiv Sena/NCP coalition has been in power for the last two-and-a-half years (2022-2024) led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Out of 20 chief ministers, 15 belonged to Congress/NCP and five to the Shiv Sena/ BJP.
The list of Congress chief ministers are Yashwantrao Chavan, Marotrao Kannamwar, P K Sawant, Vasantrao Naik, Shankarrao Chavan, Vasantdada Patil, Sharad Pawar, A R Antulay, Babasaheb Bhosale, Shivajirao Nilengekar, Sudhakarrao Naik, Vilasrao Deshmukh, Sushilkumar Shinde, Ashok Chavan, Prithviraj Chavan.
The non-Congress CMs included then undivided Shiv Sena Manohar Joshi, Narayan Rane, Uddhav Thackeray, Devendra Fadnavis (BJP) and Eknath Shinde.
