As ‘C-day’ nears, suspense grips Maharashtra parties

With countdown for counting of votes for the Lok Sabha polls having begun, suspense punctuated by an unusual phobia over the gaminess of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) has gripped various opposition parties and their leaders in Maharashtra.

The EVMs, which were first used in 50 polling stations in an assembly by-election in North Paravur in Kerala in 1981, are now looked upon as an enigma.

Given that most opposition parties believe that the EVMs could be manipulated, they are keeping their fingers crossed.

Though the elections in Maharashtra were completed on April 29, there is a lot of trepidation in the minds of all political parties who hope for the best and prepare for the worst ahead of the declaration of results on May 23.

The state, along with the rest of the country, witnessed a bitter campaign for its 48 Lok Sabha seats between the two main contenders - the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena alliance and the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine.

“The suspense is killing. I can’t wait too long for the authorities to open the EVMs which will be unlocked on the morning of May 23,” said a leader close to the Congress candidate in Mumbai.

Politicians are also wondering what will be the impact of the over a dozen “poll-eve migrations” on their respective parties and candidates and whether the scions of political families would continue their influence.

Among the many crossovers, prominent were those of Congress leader Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil’s son, Sujay VikhePatil, and senior NCP leader and ex-deputy chief minister Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil’s son Ranjitsinh Mohite-Patil, both of whom jumped ship to the BJP.

Then there is worry over the impact of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rallies in the state in which he primarily targeted NCP president Sharad Pawar and his family.

Buoyed by Modi’s repeated attacks on Maharashtra’s numero uno political family, other BJP leaders joined the chorus and publicly vowed to permanently “eliminate” the Pawars from state politics, but the Pawars laughed it off.

However, this seemed to have rebounded on the BJP from an altogether unexpected direction in the form of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray.

The MNS did not contest a single seat, but Thackeray held around 10 rallies and launched vitriolic attacks on the ruling BJP-Sena combine and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in key constituencies which attracted enthusiastic crowds.

With embarrassing audio-visual presentations which pushed the ruling combine to the walls, there is huge ‘suspense’ as to what impact Thackeray’s rallies will have on the election outcome, and if this could be a harbinger of things to come in the upcoming assembly elections in Maharashtra.

In a first, Maharashtra witnessed a volatile Dalit-Muslim force - the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) a combination of Bharipa Bahujan Mahajan and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, which jointly contested all the 48 seats in the state.

The VBA led to tremors in both the BJP-Sena and Congress-NCP alliances for its untried potential to snatch away the crucial DalitMuslim votes, which could potentially spell doom for several prominent contestants, including federal minister Nitin Gadkari and former Congress central minister Sushilkumar Shinde, among others.

For the first time in independent India, some top industrialists came out in open support of the Congress candidate from Mumbai South and former minister Milind M. Deora, sending panic-waves among the BJPSena combine on ‘the hidden message’.

Though both parties have chosen not to publicly comment on the ramifications, social media circles gleefully attribute it to ‘winds of change’ sensed by the country’s business community.

The effects of inflation, rising fuel prices and increasing costs of living, which have made domestic budgets go haywire, and the seething rage among the homemakers have only added to the ‘suspense’.

“Contrary to speculation, the middle and lower middle class may not opt for status quo, but show silent vendetta through the EVMs,” said Trade Unions Joint Action Committee (TUJAC) convener Vishwas Utagi.

Finally, there is suspicion more than suspense - among many opposition parties and politicians over the much-maligned EVMs, for which they made rounds of the Supreme Court, but were unsuccessful.

There is a strong clamour among the opposition parties to scrap the EVMs, which they allege are ‘unreliable’, and revert to the time-tested ballot paper voting, as many other countries have already done.