Voting began on Monday morning in Maharashtra and Haryanawhere the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is trying to win a second term. Thereare 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra where BJP is contesting in an alliancewith the Shiv Sena. In Haryana, there are 90 seats.

Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, Unionministers Nitin Gadkari and Piyush Goyal, and Ajit Pawar of the NationalistCongress Party were among those who cast their votes in the morning. “TheBJP-Sena will have a record-breaking victory and Fadnavis will be the chiefminister again,” said transport minister Gadkari.

Railways minister Piyush Goyal, who voted in Mumbai, saidthat people of Maharashtra will once again opt for the leadership of PrimeMinister Narendra Modi and CM Devendra Fadnavis. “I am confident that theBJP-Shiv Sena alliance will win around 225 seats. The people are with Modi jiand Fadnavis ji. The opposition has lost all credibility,” Goyal told reportersafter casting his vote.

The BJP is banking on PM Modi’s popularity and Fadnavis’emergence as a tall leader to sail through in Maharashtra. BJP is contesting on150 of the 288 seats in Maharashtra while the Shiv Sena has put up candidatesin 124 seats. 14 candidates of the NDA’s other alliance partners are fightingon BJP’s poll symbol— lotus.

PM Modi tweeted urging people to turnout in large numbersand exercise their right to vote. “Elections are taking place for Haryana andMaharashtra assemblies. There are also by-polls taking place in various partsof India. I urge voters in these states and seats to turnout in record numbersand enrich the festival of democracy. I hope youngsters vote in large numbers,”PM Modi tweeted.

The assembly polls will also indicate if the popularity ofthe BJP is still intact among the masses and if the Congress has recovered fromthe drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections held earlier this year. The BJP-ledNational Democratic Alliance (NDA) won a majority in the parliamentary pollswith BJP alone winning 303 seats. The Congress managed to win just 52.

These state polls are significant because they are beingheld after the government decided to nullify Article 370 of the constitutionthat granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The state of J&K wasdivided into two union territories—Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

In Haryana, where chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar isseeking a second term, BJP faces a Congress party that is faction-ridden.

The differences between Jat strongman and former CMBhupinder Singh Hooda and Ashok Tanwar, the former state Congress chief, wereout in the open in the weeks leading to the polls. The BJP won 47 seats inHaryana in the 2014 and has set itself a a target of 75-plus this time.