BJP still biggest party but Sena gets more muscle; NCP put up fight
With the BJP numbers lower than before, Sena likely to drive a hard bargain and seek a bigger share in portfolios
MUMBAI: Friday promises to be a day of hectic parleys between saffron allies Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena, who together won 161 out of 288 seats in the 2019 state elections, results declared on Thursday. This is the first time that a non-Congress pre-poll alliance has won a majority in the state assembly polls.
But first, a few issues need ironing out. While the ruling alliance won an easy simple majority — according to its pre-poll plan, the BJP fought on 154 seats and won 105 and the Shiv Sena on 126 seats and won 56; the halfway mark is 144 — the polls nevertheless threw up some surprises. The saffron alliance maintained its stronghold over Mumbai, winning 30 out of the 36 seats in the city. However, it could not breach the 220-seat mark as it had hoped. The BJP lost nearly 5% of vote share compared to 2014, performing worse within an alliance than when it fought the state election on its own. In 2014, the BJP won 122 seats, while the Sena won 63.
The Opposition’s performance was better than its 2014 tally, with the NCP gaining 13 more seats and the Congress gaining three more. As of 10.15 pm, the Congress-NCP alliance had won 98 seats, while in 2014 they had won 83.
Shiv Sena’s bargaining powers have increased considerably, and the party, which opposed the BJP on several issues even while being a partner in the previous government, is likely to insist on an equal power-share agreement, including splitting the chief minister’s post. Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray indicated as much, when addressing a press conference in Mumbai on Thursday, he said, “We are in no rush to form the government. We will first discuss (our stance) with the BJP’s leadership, finalise our formula and then take a call. Who will be the chief minister is an important question. We had arrived at a 50:50 formula before the Lok Sabha election, and we want to stick to that.”
The party leadership, however, has ratified incumbent chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’ second term as CM. Fadnavis defeated his nearest rival, Congress’s Ashish Deshmukh by a margin of 49,344 votes from the Nagpur South West constituency. Addressing party supporters at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi on Thursday, the Prime Minster said, “It was only after 50 years a Chief Minister (Devendra Fadnavis) could complete his full 5-year tenure in Maharashtra.”
“If we look at BJP, we had contested 260 seats last time and won 122 seats, which is a strike rate of 47 per cent. This time we contested 150 seats plus 14 of our smaller allies and won 105. That’s a strike rate of 70 per cent. Our vote share is also 26.5 per cent despite contesting fewer seats,” Fadnavis said on Thursday.
“Two of the results are shocking for us, one is the Lok Sabha bypoll in Satara and the other is the loss of Parli seat of Pankaja Munde. We were confident of these wins. Some of our minishad ters have also lost and we will introspect about this at a later stage,” he said.
The BJP will continue to be the biggest party in the state, but as many as six sitting ministers have lost these assembly polls including Ram Shinde in KarjatJamkhed and Madan Yerawar in Yavatmal. To be sure, three sitting MLAs of the Sena too have lost -- Jaydutt Kshirsagar in Beed, Vijay Shivtare in Purandar and Arjun Khotkar in Jalna.
On the contrary, NCP chief Sharad Pawar was one of the big winners. Not only did he emerge as the face of the Opposition while campaigning across the length and breadth of the state,he also succeeded in consolidating the Maratha vote bank and retaining the Satara stronghold despite heavyweight defections such as that of Chhatrapati Shivaji descendent Udyanraje Bhosale, who joined the BJP last month after resigning his Lok Sabha seat. Bhosale lost the election.
“Pawar managed to consolidate the Maratha vote bank in his favour post the Enforcement Directorate case and hence made gains in Western Maharashtra. The NCP campaign of Pawar, 79-year-old Maratha leader taking on BJP’s top brass in Delhi, after betrayals from within his fold, worked in his favour especially among the youth in this region,’’ said Nitin Birmal, a Pune-based political analyst.
Birmal added that there was a clear urban-rural and nationallocal angle to these elections that led to BJP falling short on its own expectations.
While the saffron parties gained in Mumbai- KonkanPune urban belt, it could not expand base in Western Maharashtra or retain the advantage in Vidarbha.
The Congress won 44 seats (as of 10.15 pm). Vidarbha has limited presence of both the regional parties (Sena and NCP) and has traditionally see-sawed between the Congress and the BJP.
The voting leads showed Congress likely to win 17 seats in Vidarbha region; seven more than in 2014 polls. The BJP which won 44 seats here in 2014 polls, could only win 27 seats this time.
“The loss in Vidarbha is largely because of the deep rural unrest due to the agrarian crisis and unemployment. If the Congress would have done some work, the BJP would have eaten dust here. At least three sitting ministers have lost from here and this shows a disconnect with people on ground,’’ said farmer leader from Vidarbha, Kishore Tiwari. Tiwari left the BJP ahead of the polls and joined the Sena.
Political observers also say that the BJP’s insistence on making the revocation of Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, as one of the poll planks failed, and the Opposition highlighted BJP’s silence on issues of unemployment, agrarian crisis, drought and floods.
“The BJP’s attempt to focus on Kashmir at the cost of regional issues failed miserably because there was no connect on ground. People vote in Lok Sabha polls and state polls differently,’’ said Surendra Jondhale, political analyst.
Fadnavis however denied that the party’s focus on Kashmir had proved costly.
Rebels fought in as many as 35 seats in the state. As of Thursday night, independents led in 13 seats but a majority of them were supporters of saffron combine.
THE BJP LOST NEARLY 5% OF VOTE SHARE COMPARED TO 2014, PERFORMING WORSE WITHIN AN ALLIANCE THAN WHEN IT FOUGHT THE STATE ELECTION ON ITS OWN