The Maharashtra Legislative Assembly or the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha is the lower house of the legislature of the state of Maharashtra. It is situated in the state capital Mumbai in the Nariman Point area of South Mumbai and comprises of 288 members. The members are directly elected from the single-seat constituencies and one member is nominated. The term of office is five years.
Maharashtra has a bicameral legislature, comprised of two houses - the lower house or Legislative Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) and the upper house or Legislative Council (Vidhan Parishad). Members of the upper house are indirectly elected through an electoral college.
The seat of the Vidhan Parishad is situated at the Nariman Point area of South Mumbai. The budget session and the monsoon session are convened in Mumbai whereas the winter session is convened in the auxiliary capital Nagpur.
CURRENT:
The current Speaker of the House, since 2014, is BJP leader Haribhau Bagade, and the Deputy Speaker is Vijayrao Auti of the Shiv Sena. Since 2014, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP has been Leader of the House, while Vijay Namdevrao Wadettiwar of the Congress has been Leader of the Opposition since June 2019.
The major parties that contested the 2014 election were the Indian National Congress (incumbent), the Bharatiya Janata Party, Nationalist Congress Party, and the Shiv Sena. In the 2014 Assembly election, the BJP failed to get a majority on its own but emerged as the single-largest party by winning 122 seats of the total 288.
END OF TERM:
The term of the current 13th Legislative Assembly expires on November 9, 2019, and parties are gearing up for the election which will be held in a single-phase on October 21, 2019, and the counting of votes will take place three days later i.e, on October 24, 2019. The notification will be issued on September 27, 2019.
The last date for candidates to file their nomination papers has been given as October 4, 2019, and their papers will be scrutinised on October 5, 2019. Candidates who want to withdraw from the race can do so on or before October 7, 2019.
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