Maharashtra is India’s second-largest state, covering western parts of central India. The state’s capital is Mumbai, India’s largest city and financial capital.
Maharashtra has 48 seats in the Lok Sabha, and voters will go to the polls in the first three rounds of voting from 16 April to 30 April, with a majority of electorates voting on 23 April.
The 2004 election saw the major parties win a bare majority of Maharashtra’s seats, winning 13 each out of a total of 48. The remaining 22 seats were all won by parties who won no seats outside of the state.
The Hindu nationalist party Shiv Sena won 12 of the 48 seats, and is allied to the BJP’s National Democratic Alliance. The Nationalist Congress Party won 9 seats. The NCP is allied with the INC’s United Progressive Alliance and broke away from the INC in 1999 over the issue of Italian-born Sonia Gandhi’s right to contest the prime ministership. There is one other seat held by the small Republican Party of India (Athvale), which is also a member of the UPA. Overall this gives the right-wing NDA a 25-23 majority in the state’s federal parliamentary delegation.
The state is governed by a coalition of the INC and NCP. The biggest recent issue in Maharashtra have revolved around the Mumbai terrorist attacks in November 2008, which saw Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh resign on December 2.
