BJP sees historic poll performance, Mahayuti gets over 230 seats; Cong-led bloc bites dust
MUMBAI: The BJP-led Mahayuti alliance on Saturday retained power in Maharashtra, scripting an incredible performance by making a clean sweep in 230 of the 288-Assembly seats. The ruling alliance left the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s (MVA) miles behind, dashing the opposition combine’s hopes which could bag only 46 seats.
The Election Commission announced that the BJP has won 132 seats, the Shiv Sena won 57, while the NCP got 41 seats.
In the MVA, the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) candidates won 10 seats, Congress won 16, while Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) won 20 seats.
With the Mahayuti’s impressive performance which exceeded all expectations and even projections of the exit polls, Deputy Chief Minister Devevdra Fadnavis, the BJP’s most recognisable face and architect of the dream victory in Maharashtra, has emerged as one of the most prominent national figures in the party.
The Assembly poll results in the politically important state have also delivered the most significant defeat to Sharad Pawar as his faction of the Nationalist Congress Party(NCP) was in alliance of MVA with the Congress and Uddhav Thackerary’s faction of the Shiv Sena.
There is already speculation that the swearing in of the new CM may take place as early as Monday and that too in the same venue, the sprawling Wankhede Stadium in south Mumbai, where Fadnavis was sworn in as the CM 10 years ago.
Going by the results, Maharashtra may not have a leader of opposition in the Lower House, as norms stipulate that a party should have at least 10 per cent of the total members of the Assembly and not cobble up the number as an alliance.
Some of the winners include BJP’s Kalidas Kolambkar who defeated Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Shraddha Jadhav by 24,973 in Wadala constituency after 16 rounds to become a legislator for the ninth time in a row.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his deputies Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar won in their respective Assembly constituencies, while senior Congress leaders Prithviraj Chavan and Balasaheb Thorat lost in theirs. Congress leader Nana Patole was trailing behind his BJP rival in Sakoli seat by 1607 votes after 25 of the 28 rounds.
Shinde said the results of the Assembly elections were historic, and showed to whom the Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena belong to. Fadnavis said there was no dispute over the chief minister’s post and leaders of Mahayuti will decide on the issue together as the saffron party-led coalition is heading for a landslide victory. The results show that the state supports PM Narendra Modi, he said, and also thanked women voters.
“The opposition’s efforts to propagate a fake narrative, and polarise voters based on religion was foiled by masses,” said Fadnavis. The deputy CM said he succeeded in breaking the ‘chakravyuh’ of opposition due to the support of voters, the BJP team and party leaders.
Home Minister and senior BJP leader Amit Shah called Fadnavis and congratulated him on the party’s impressive performance in the Maharashtra Assembly elections.
The counting of votes in the Maharashtra Assembly elections began at 8 am Saturday, with all eyes on the outcome of the battle between the ruling BJP-led Mahayuti coalition and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance. The final turnout in the polls, held on November 20, was 66.05 per cent, up from 61.1 per cent in 2019.
In the Mahayuti, the BJP contested 149 seats, Shiv Sena 81, and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP fielded candidates in 59 constituencies. The BJP clocked a stunning strike rate of nearly 87 per cent.
In the MVA combine, the Congress fielded 101 candidates, Shiv Sena (UBT) 95, and NCP (SP) put up 86 candidates. The Congress was left shell-shocked in Maharashtra and its narrative of caste census and the Constitution failed to cut ice with the voters. With Parliament’s winter session scheduled to begin from November 25, the ruling BJP is sure to display its electoral dominance and go into session on a confidence-boosting note.
After the Lok Sabha elections of April-May 2024 where the BJP was halted in its tracks and could bag only 240 seats, the opposition believed that it was the beginning of the decline of the BJP but the recent assembly polls in Haryana proved them wrong and now the results from Maharashtra have shown that the resurgence of the Congress-led opposition would take more time to be able to challenge the BJP. For the time being, the Congress will have to introspect and analyse where the party went wrong and why it failed to carry its message across to the voters in Maharashtra.
