A close finish on the cards in Maharashtra Assembly polls

It is not just Maharashtra Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, Shiv Sena leader Balasaheb Thackeray and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Pramod Mahajan, who will be watching turnout figures, security and the general mood as Maharashtra goes to the polls to elect a state government tomorrow.

A keen contest is also on the cards for by-elections to three Lok Sabha and 39 Assembly seats including the sensitive Madhepura parliamentary constituency in Bihar vacated by Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad after he decided to retain the Chhapra seat, the Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh and Bidar parliamentary constituency in Karnataka.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is hoping to win the Pahalgam seat and enter the J&K legislative Assembly.

Madhepura is the centre of attention because the ruling RJD candidate is Pappu Yadav who was till recently a supporter of Ramvilas Paswan and joined the RJD hours before he was given the nomination.

The JD(U) has fielded former MP RP Yadav, after its leader, Sharad Yadav was defeated in the last election. The wild card in Madhepura is the presence of the CPI(M), which has put up a candidate against the wishes of ally Lalu Prasad.

The Bidar Lok Sabha seat in Karnataka, that fell vacant following the death of veteran parliamentarian Ramchandra Veerappa, is going to see a similar decisive election.

Against the background of troubled relations between coalition partners Congress and JD(S), both parties have put up candidates against each other in a fight where the balance of advantage could go to the BJP.

Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav quit the Mainpuri seat to take up chief ministership. The seat is witnessing a multi-corner contest.

But there is no doubt that it is the Maharashtra Assembly election that will elicit the most attention tomorrow, poised as they are be a cliff-hanger.

Smaller parties like the BSP and the SP have raised their stakes, sensing no government might be possible without them. The presence of the BSP, the SP and over 1,000 independents have turned the elections to the 288-member House into a multi-cornered contest.

The BSP, which played spoilsport for the Congress in Vidarbha in the Lok Sabha polls, is contesting 272 seats""the highest ever for it""and has extended an emotional appeal of carving out a separate state of Vidarbha. The SP, which is contesting 95 seats, has the potential of dividing votes in the minority-dominated assembly constituencies.

Shinde, must win from Solapur-south Assembly constituency if his party gets enough seats to form the government and he is made Chief Minister.

Deputy Chief Minister Vijaysingh Mohite-Patil who is also a senior NCP leader, is contesting from Malshiras, his home constituency.

The fate of three former chief ministers Vilasrao Deshmukh (Latur), Shivajirao Patil-Nilangekar (Nilanga), both Congress, and Narayan Rane of Shiv Sena from Malvan, will also be decided in the polls.

Akin to the 1995 polls when rebels played a crucial role in installing the first Sena-BJP government, it appears that those defying party diktats could hold the key to tilt the balance to either side this time as well.