The ruling Mahayuti will win the 2024 Maharashtra election, two of three exit polls said Wednesday evening, shortly after the close of single-phase voting in the state.

The BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP alliance will emerge the winner with 150-195 seats in the 288-member Assembly, the Matrize and Peoples Pulse exit polls declared. A third poll – P-Marq – predicted a closer fight but still gave the Mahayuti a narrow win, with a score of 147.

The opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance – the Congress and the Sena and NCP factions led by ex-Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar – are predicted to stumble with Matrize and Peoples Pulse giving it a maximum of 130 seats.

The exception is P-Marq, which expects the MVA to get between 126 and 146 seats.

The majority mark in the Maharashtra Assembly is 145.

Health warning: exit polls often get it wrong.

The BJP and its allies will likely emerge victorious in the Jharkhand assembly election, according to exit polls.

Health warning: exit polls often get it wrong.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is predicted to win 42-47 seats, while the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) may get 25-30 seats in the 81-seat assembly, according to an exit poll by Matrize.

Another exit poll by Peoples Pulse forecast the NDA winning 44-53 seats, giving 25-37 seats to the INDIA bloc.

The exit poll by Times Now-JVC predicted 40-44 seats for the NDA, and 30-40 for the Grand Alliance.

The BJP contested on 68 seats, All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) 10 seats, Janata Dal (United) 2 seats, and the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) 1 seat.

Their rival Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) of Chief Minister Hemant Soren fought in 41 seats, Congress 30 seats, Rashtriya Janata Dal 6 seats, and Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) 4 seats.

The primary contest in Jharkhand is between the Mahagathbandhan and the BJP-led NDA.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh today met his Chinese counterpart Dong Jun for bilateral talks in Vientiane, Lao PDR. The two leaders met for the first time since the military disengagement in Ladakh. At the meeting Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told Mr Dong that “Galwan-type incidents must be avoided”.

They reviewed the situation at the Line of Actual Control and the disengagement in areas where the two sides were in a standoff for more than four years.

The meeting took place on the sidelines of a conclave of the 10-nation ASEAN grouping.

Indian and Chinese militaries had completed the disengagement exercise in last two friction points at Demchok and Depsang late last month. Regular patrolling by troops of both sides also resumed in the two areas after a gap of almost four-and-a-half years.

The military standoff in the upper Himalayan region of Ladakh were mainly in five regions along the Line of Actual Control or LAC – Galwan, Pangong, Gogra Hot Springs, Depsang, and Demchok.

Ties between India and China had taken a severe hit and had come to an abrupt halt after the military clash in Galwan Valley in June 2020. It took four years of diplomatic and military-level talks between both sides to finally come to an agreement to reinstate the status quo to what it was before the stand-off in 2020. The agreement to disengage finally happened on October 21 this year and both militaries completed the process to move back to pre-2020 status by October 31.

Rajnath Singh began his three-day visit to Laos on Wednesday, primarily to attend a meeting of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus, which is a platform comprising the 10-nation ASEAN and its eight dialogue partners – India, China, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia and the United States.

Laos is hosting the meeting in its capacity as the current Chair of the forum.