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Maharashtra faces tough battle in final phase

Besides the six seats in Mumbai, there are four other seats in the Mumbai metropolitan region — Thane, Kalyan, Bhiwandi and Palghar.

The third and final phase of elections in Maharashtra, for 19 parliamentary seats (including six in Mumbai), will be held on Thursday, with an electorate of 31.7 million sealing the fate of 338 candidates in the fray.

The Congress-NCP combine, which had swept the polls in Mumbai in 2009 winning all six seats is facing an uphill task this time and is expected to win just two seats — Mumbai south (Milind Deora) and Mumbai north-central (Priya Dutt).

Besides the six seats in Mumbai, there are four other seats in the Mumbai metropolitan region — Thane, Kalyan, Bhiwandi and Palghar. Voters in the neighbouring Raigad constituency in the Konkan will also vote on Thursday. The remaining eight constituencies include four in Khandesh (Jalgaon, Raver, Dhule and Nandurbar) and two each in Nashik region (Nashik and Dindori) and Marathawada (Aurangabad and Jalna).

Maharashta, which has the second-highest number of parliamentary constituencies (48) after Uttar Pradesh (80), has seen three-phase polling in the ongoing elections. The first phase was held on April 10 covering 10 constituencies in Vidarbha, while the second phase on April 17, saw voting in 19 more constituencies, mainly in western Maharashtra and Marathawada.

More than 60 per cent of the electorate voted in the elections during the two phases. While the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) comprising the Congress and the NCP won 25 of the 48 seats in Maharashtra in 2009, the National Democratic Alliance (which includes the BJP and the Shiv Sena) had won 20 seats.

Opinion polls are this time predicting that the NDA could win between 30 and 36 seats in the state. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which had last time adversely affected the prospects of at least 10 Shiv Sena candidates, has this time fielded candidates strategically, avoiding fights with the BJP.

The BJP is contesting in 11 of the 19 seats in the final phase on Thursday, while its ally, the Shiv Sena has put up candidates in the remaining eight.

The MNS has fielded candidates in seven seats, while the Congress had put up 10 candidates and the NCP eight.

Prominent candidates whose fate will be decided on Thursday include junior minister Deora and Dutt, former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal (NCP - Nashik), Gurudas Kamat (Congress - Mumbai northwest) and Poonam Mahajan (BJP - Mumbai northcentral).

nithin@khaleejtimes.com