NEW DELHI: The BJP on Saturday powered the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to a landslide win in Maharashtra, while Chief Minister Hemant Soren-led JMM saw the ruling INDIA bloc through in Jharkhand.
With 230 seats in the 288-member Assembly, the Mahayuti alliance of the BJP, Shiv Sena and the NCP swept the Maharashtra election, clocking an unprecedented four-fifth majority. The opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi won 49 seats.
The BJP alone clinched 132 seats, Shiv Sena 57 and the NCP 41. This is the BJP’s best performance in the country’s richest state, although it had bagged over 100 seats in 2014 and 2019 as well. “Development wins, good governance wins, together we will soar even higher,” PM Narendra Modi said on the saffron sweep in Maharashtra.
In contrast, the Congress was demolished in the western state with its worst-ever show. The party won just 16 of the 101 seats it contested. The NCP led by Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar also stood decimated, winning only 10 of the 86 seats it fielded candidates from. Among the Maha Vikas Aghadi allies, the Shiv Sena-UBT had the highest score of 20 wins of the 95 segments where it was in the fray. The Samajwadi Party won two seats and the CPM one.
The mega mandate for the NDA has several messages, principal being the BJP’s emergence as the most dominant party in the state, consolidation of various communities behind the NDA, which posted gains across all six regions of Maharashtra, and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde of the Shiv Sena and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar of the NCP winning legacy wars in people’s court.
The fall of Sharad Pawar, famously called the Chanakya of Indian politics, was another outcome of the today’s mandate along with the comprehensive loss of popular support for Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray’s son Uddhav Thackeray, who had ditched his ideological ally BJP for the CM’s chair in 2019.
“This is the victory for development and public welfare. I thank my laadli behnas (women) and farmers. Uddhav Thackeray spent all his time abusing us. We spent time on welfare. People want development, not negativity,” Shinde said. The BJP, however, gave credit to PM Modi’s “Ek hain to safe hain” narrative, pointing to the party’s victory in Maratha as well as other OBC-dominated segments and winning back the Dalit and tribal support it had lost in the Lok Sabha elections.
The BJP’s strike rate (percentage of seats won against overall contested) was the highest at over 87 per cent, followed by NCP’s 69 per cent and Shiv Sena’s 66 per cent.
Sharad Pawar’s NCP had the poorest strike rate at 12.79 per cent, followed by the Congress 17 per cent and Shiv Sena Uddhav 22 per cent.
In Jharkhand, Hemant Soren established himself as the supreme tribal leader by powering the ruling coalition to a second straight term, beating the BJP’s sharp anti-infiltration pitch spun around tribals who dominate the electoral landscape.
Playing victim, Hemant led the coalition to a comfortable majority in the 81-member House, winning 56 seats. The JMM alone won 34 seats, Congress 16, RJD 4 and the CPIML 2.
The BJP with 21 seats emerged second largest party in Jharkhand after the JMM and ahead of the Congress. The NDA allies All Jharkhand Students Union and the LJP clocked only one lead each, pulling the coalition down.
Though the day was overall a draw between rival factions which took one state each, the BJP was the showstopper that made massive gains across the country.
Barely months after the saffron party’s poor show in Uttar Pradesh, it won six seats (seventh seat won by ally RLD) of the nine where the byelections were held, leaving two for the SP. In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had lost seven of these nine segments.
In Rajasthan too, the BJP won five of the seven Assembly seats. Among the two Lok Sabha byelections, the BJP lost in Maharashtra’s Nanded in a nail-biting finish, while Congress’ Priyanka Gandhi Vadra registered a thumping win in Kerala’s Wayanad in her electoral debut.
Of the 46 Assembly byelections, the BJP and NDA partners won 26. The remaining were divided between the Congress and regional players.