Mumbai, Oct 24 (IANS): The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shiv Sena candidates were leading in over 30 constituencies, while the opposition Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) nominees in around 12, as early trends of the October 21 Maharashtra Assembly elections became available here on Thursday.

Among the prominent leaders were the BJP's Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil in Shirdi, Nitesh Rane in Kankavali, Mohini Eknath Khadse in Muktainagar and Shiv Sena's Aditya Thackeray in Worli.

From the opposition side, thr NCP's Ajit Pawar in Baramati, Congress' Leader of Opposition Vijay Wadettiwar in Brahmapuri and Balasaheb Thorat in Sangamner were leading as per the initial trends in around 50 of the 288 constituencies.

Besides the ruling BJP-Sena and Congress-NCP, other important parties in the fray include: Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, Prakash Ambedkar's Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, the Owaisis' All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party.

Tight security, with over 200,000 police personnel has been deployed as more than 25,000 election officials started the counting of votes simultaneously across the state.

--IANS

qn/ksk