The exit poll predictions on Wednesday predicted a lead for the ruling Mahayuti alliance- consisting of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), CM Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra.
While the Matrize and Chanakya Strategies gave at least 150 seats to the ruling alliance, led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi was projected to get around 130 seats.
The Matrize gave 150-170 seats to the BJP+ alliance, while the MVA is projected to get 110-130 seats, while the Chanakya Strategies projected the NDA alliance getting 152-160 seats and the MVA 130-138 seats.
However, the Dainik Bhaskar Exit Poll gave a lead to the opposition alliance, predicting 135-150 seats for the Maha Vikas Aghadi and 125-140 seats for the NDA alliance. Similarly, the Lokshahi Marathi-Rudra gave only 128-142 seats to the Mahayuti, 125-140 seats to the MVA, and left 18-23 for other parties.
According to People's Pulse, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde was the top choice for the CM's chair with an approval rating of 35.8%, while Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray was the second choice in Maharashtra with 21.7%.
Fadnavis was the third choice at 11.7% and Ajit Pawar came next with an approval rating of 2.3%. The People's Pulse survey showed Mahayuti getting between 175 and 195 seats and MVA getting 85 and 112 seats.
Meanwhile, in terms of the vote share, the BJP alliance is projected to get 47% of the votes, while the MVA alliance is expected to get 42% votes. Other parties are expected to get 11% votes, the Matrize poll showed.
In terms of party-wise results, the BJP is expected to get 89-101 seats, while the Shiv Sena is likely to get 37-45 seats and NCP 17-26. In the MVA camp, the Congress is projected to get 39-47 seats, Shiv Sena (UBT) 21-29 and NCP (SP) 35-43.
The voting concluded in Maharashtra on all the 288 seats earlier today. Maharashtra recorded a voter turnout of 58.22 per cent till 5 pm on Wednesday, with Gadchiroli district logging more than 69 per cent voting, poll officials said. Polling began at 7 am in the state and continued till 6 pm.
A total of 1,00,186 polling booths were set up across the state this time, compared to 96,654 booths in the 2019 assembly elections. The counting of votes will be done on November 23.