The ruling MahaYuti alliance and opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi bloc were engaged in a neck and neck fight as vote counting was underway for the 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state, here on Tuesday.
Indicating surprises may be in store as per the early counting trends, the MahaYuti was leading in 20 seats while the MVA was dominating in 27 seats, and one independent was trudging ahead in Sangli.
The main parties in the fray are Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party-Nationalist Congress Party and Congress-Shiv Sena (UBT)-Nationalist Congress Party (SP), and as the counting progressed the leads/trends kept changing drastically.
Some of the candidates who built up comfortable starting leads included: Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Raval, Narayan Rane, Raksha Khadse (all BJP), Dr. Shrikant Shinde (Shiv Sena), Chhatrapati Shrimant Shahu Maharaj, Prof. Varsha Gaikwad, Suresh Wankhade (Congress), Supriya Sule (NCP-SP), Arvind Sawant, Amar Kale (SS-UBT), besides some other candidates.
