Maharashtra Polls: MVA & Mahayuti Trade Bitcoin, Bribery Charges On Election Day — Top Points

Maharashtra Elections: Voting began in Maharashtra for 288 assembly seats amidst political drama.

Elections to the 288-member Maharashtra Legislative Assembly began on Wednesday amid high-voltage political drama and a significantly lower voter turnout. 

 

Voting began at 7 am across all the polling stations with over 9.7 crore voters sealing the fate of 4,136 candidates in the fray. 

 

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance vying to retain power and the opposition's Maha Vikas Aghadi hoping for a comeback involved in trading charges against each other over electoral malpractices. 

• As the voting was underway, BJP mounted an attack on opposition leaders Supriya Sule and Nana Patole for their alleged involvement in using Bitcoins illegally to fund elections and claimed their roles would surface during the probe.


• Sule rejected the allegations, including the audio records purportedly featuring her voice, after casting a vote in Baramati. She dismissed the audio clips as fake and said she had filed a complaint with the Election Commission and the Maharashtra Police.


• The charge came a day after the opposition alleged BJP general secretary Vinod Tawde of distributing cash to influence voters in Palghar. 


• Tawde also dismissed the allegations against him saying he was well aware of the rules and not foolish enough to indulge in such an activity at the hotel of political opponents.


• The voting in the state was largely peaceful except for one instance in Nandgaon where supporters of Shiv Sena candidate Suhas Kande clashed with the supporters of Independent candidate Sameer Bhujbal. NCP leader Chagan Bhujbal's nephew, Sameer is contesting the polls as an Independent after the Mahayuti fielded Kande from the constituency. 


• Polling was briefly halted at the Sant Kabir Primary School polling station in Madhya Nagpur Assembly Constituency due to a technical glitch in the EVM. Voting resumed an hour later after the issue was fixed. 


• Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy CMs Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar, Union Ministers Piyush Goyal and Nitin Gadkari, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat, NCP-SCP MP Supriya Sule were among the top political leaders who cast their vote. 


• An ensemble of Bollywood and TV celebrities also reached their polling stations to cast votes and urged people to step out and exercise their franchise. Akshay Kumar, Rajkumar Rao, Ranbir Kapoor, Farhan Khan, Zoya Khan, and director Subhash Ghai came out and cast their votes. 


• Former Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik, Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das and former cricketer Sachin Tendulkar also polled their votes. 


• Despite calls by politicians and actors appealing to exercise the franchise, the voter turnout remained significantly low with 32.18 per cent votes polled till 1 pm, according to the Election Commission of India.