Mumbai, Pune Students Shine As Maharashtra Toppers In JEE Main 2026
Mumbai, Pune Students Shine As Maharashtra Toppers In JEE Main 2026 (Representational pic)
Madhav Viradiya from Mumbai and Siddharth Athalye from Pune secured perfect 100 percentile in JEE Main 2026, bringing pride to Maharashtra.
Maharashtra has delivered an impressive performance in JEE Main 2026, with students from Mumbai and Pune emerging as state toppers after scoring a perfect 100 percentile in Session 2 of the national engineering entrance exam.
Madhav Viradiya from Mumbai and Siddharth Athalye from Pune were among the country’s top scorers in the results declared by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Monday evening.
Viradiya also achieved 100 percentile in Session 1, highlighting exceptional consistency across both attempts. He is now preparing for JEE Advanced and hopes to secure admission to IIT Bombay in computer engineering.
Originally from Vadodara, Viradiya shifted cities during his academic journey to focus on preparation. He studied in Mumbai after earlier academic phases elsewhere. His father is an engineer and businessman, while his elder brother is studying at IIT Jodhpur.
“I prepared very hard for this examination and I secured 100 percentile in both the sessions. I have already started preparing for JEE Advanced,” he said.
Pune’s Siddharth Athalye also delivered a strong comeback story. After scoring 99.986 percentile in Session 1, he improved further to touch the perfect mark in Session 2.
He prepared for the exam entirely in Pune and studied at Bakliwal Tutorials. Siddharth said he enjoyed studying and did not need stress busters during the two-year preparation phase.
“My mother, father, elder sister all are engineers and I also want to become an engineer as I love physics, chemistry and mathematics,” he said.
His elder sister completed chemical engineering from IIT Bombay, becoming a source of motivation for him.
According to NTA figures, 16,04,854 candidates registered for both JEE Main sessions this year, while 15,38,468 appeared for the exam. Out of them, 2,50,182 students have qualified for JEE Advanced, which is scheduled to be held on May 17.
Students from Maharashtra, Delhi, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat and Telangana featured among the national toppers this year.
The strong showing by Mumbai and Pune students has once again highlighted Maharashtra’s growing strength in competitive engineering examinations, with both toppers now setting their sights on IIT admissions.
