The Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly elections will be held across two phases beginning November 13, the Election Commission said. Jharkhand will vote in two phases - on November 13 and November 20, and Maharashtra will vote on November 20. Counting of votes for both states will take place on November 23, the poll panel said.
Dates were also announced for some Lok Sabha bypolls, including Kerala's Wayanad seat. Rahul Gandhi has given up the seat because he also won the family bastion of Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh.
In the 2019 Jharkhand election Chief Minister Hemant Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha - part of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance - won 47 of the state's 82 seats.
In Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the (then undivided) Shiv Sena dominated, winning 161 of 288 seats. However, the alliance broke down over sharing of power and the Sena joined hands with the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress to form the government.
That government, however, lasted only till 2023; rebellions by the Sena's Eknath Shinde - now the Chief Minister - and the NCP's Ajit Pawar - now Shinde's deputy - forced then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to resign and his coalition Maha Vikas Aghadi government to fall.
Looking ahead, the BJP - in power in Maharashtra now with the Sena and NCP factions that broke away from Thackeray and Sharad Pawar - will look to finish 2024 on a high after a historic April-June general election that saw Narendra Modi become a three-time Prime Minister.
Shinde will bank on his flagship scheme - Ladki Bahin Yojana, which sees poor women get a monthly stipend of ₹ 1,500 - to sway voters after his alliance's poor show in the Lok Sabha election. The ruling alliance - dubbed Mahayuti - won just 17 of the 48 parliamentary seats.
For the Congress, the Maharashtra and Jharkhand polls are critical after the Haryana defeat - in an election it was widely expected to win - and the slump in J&K, in which support for the NC from four independents means the Kashmiri party doesn't actually need Congress support.
