Mumbai: The BJP-Shiv Sena jointly took the lead in the assembly elections in Maharashtra but fell short not just of its own expectations but also of its own tally from the 2014 elections that it fought separately. Though the lead of 156 seats indicates that the two parties are on course to retain power in the state, the two had aimed at winning over 220 seats. A party needs to win 145 of the 288 seats to form the government.
The results have sprung a surprise for both the ruling party and the opposition. While the BJP has not been able to meet its target of over 120 seats, the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party have faired a lot better than predicted in the exit polls. This has given rise to several permutations and combinations, and the Sena has emerged as a key player in these equations. At least five ministers from the Devendra Fadnavis government have either lost in their respective seats. With counting still underway, the BJP's alliance is expected to get around 160 seats, while the Congress and its allies are expected to get around 100 seats--in 2014 the latter had got a total of 83 seats.
Reminding the BJP of the '50:50 sharing pact' that Amit Shah engineered before the election, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has now demanded the chief minister's post for his party on a rotational basis. Speaking to the media in Mumbai, Thackeray said, “I have been accommodating during Lok Sabha elections, but I can't keep doing that anymore. I have a certain responsibility towards my party too and have to ensure my party flourishes,” he said. Thackeray, however, remained steadfast in the promise that Sena would ally with BJP, scotching speculation that it would enter into an alliance with any other political formation.
In such a situation, the Shiv Sena is no more going to accept a junior position in its coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party. Even in the previous government, relations between the two were uneasy and several Shiv Sena leaders and the party's mouthpiece, Saamna, often took jibes at the BJP
Thackeray's son Aaditya, who successfully contested from the Worli constituency in Mumbai, is the first ever from the family to have participated in an electoral process. Thackeray said he is proud of his son. “We are proud of Aaditya's win. But most importantly are grateful to people for their love and hope that they would continue to love him in the future too,” he added.
Voter turnout in the state has been only 60.50%, lower than the last 2014 assembly elections, when over 63.08% of voters had turned up. The highest turnout was reported in Karvir constituency in Kolhapur, at 82.15% and the lowest was recorded in South Mumbai's Colaba area at 37.43%. Rural regions of the state fared better than the cities. The ruling party, however, seems unperturbed by the relatively low turnout. Exit polls, too, have indicated a comeback for the BJP and Shiv Sena in the state.
Neck and Neck in Haryana
The Haryana unit of the BJP was pushed into a state of turmoil by the results of the assembly elections as it failed to get a complete majority. Seven of its ministers also lost. The mandate clearly was against the manner in which the Manohar Lal Khattar-led government had functioned over the past five years. At the time of writing this newsletter, the final results had not come in.
Though Khattar won from Karnal, defeating Tarlochan Singh of Congress by 45,188 votes – the third biggest margin of victory in the state – and senior minister Anil Vij won by 20,165 votes from the Ambala Cantonment constituency, most other senior ministers lost. The biggest setback for the party came from Mahendragarh, where its five-time legislator and minister Ram Bilas Sharma was on the verge of losing to Rao Dan Singh of the Congress. At 6 pm, as per the Election Commission's data, he was trailing by over 10,000 votes.
The BJP appears to have slipped drastically from its whopping 58% vote share in 2019 Lok Sabha polls to around 35%. The drop of around 23 percentage points indicates that the BJP's thrust on national issues like Centre move to dilute Article 370 over regional issues like employment and agrarian problems did not work much for it.
A party needs 46 seats to form the government in the state. Meanwhile, Haryana BJP president Subhash Barala resigned from his post, taking moral responsibility for the party's poor performance in the assembly elections.