Maharashtra Assembly election: Devendra Fadnavis set to return to power; leads by over 8,300 votes

Maharashtra Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis is leading by 8,398 votes in round 3 of the counting in the Maharashtra Assembly election on Thursday. CM Fadnavis, who led the BJP campaign in the state, is fighting from his home turf Nagpur South-West against Ashish Deshmukh of the Congress. Deshmukh is trailing with 1,970 votes.

Besides, Fadnavis' Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is also ahead in the counting of votes, as per early trends. BJP is leading in 99 seats while ally Shiv Sena is leading in 61 seats. Congress is leading in 41 seats while NCP is ahead in 48.

Also read: Maharashtra Election Results 2019 Live Updates: BJP gets early lead as counting begins across 288 seats

Counting of votes for Maharashtra Assembly polls started at 8 am for all the 288 Assembly segments today. A total of 3,239 candidates are contesting from the 288 seats in Maharashtra.

The main parties in election that are in the fray are the BJP, the Shiv Sena, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

Polling for the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha polls took place on October 21 (Monday). Most exit polls, released immediately after polling ended, gave BJP-Sena alliance a comfortable majority.

Also read: Haryana Assembly Election Results 2019 Live Updates: Khattar, Hooda lead in early trends