The incumbent Maha Yuti coalition has swept the assembly polls in Maharashtra, with BJP recording a victory for the history books. In what was expected to be a neck-and-neck race, it looks like the Maha Yuti is looking at a landslide victory.
While celebration was the zeitgeist of the day for BJP and Shiv Sena, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray, expressing disappointment over the loss of Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) said, “Cannot believe Maharashtra, which listened to me as head of family during COVID, will behave with me this way.” Reacting to the loss, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi too said that the result was unexpected.
At 65.2%, Maharashtra recorded the highest voter turnout that it has seen since 1995. Usually, when voters come out to vote in such large numbers, anti-incumbency is the motivator. However, this election proved the anti-incumbency theory wrong, making this the biggest every victory for BJP in the state. BJP has won 101 seats and is leading on 32 seats out of the 288 seats in total as of 7:30 pm.
Shiv Sena (UBT), Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party, and Congress, which are key leaders within the MVA, combined do not exceed BJP’s seat tally. Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP are ahead of all the parties within the MVA too. BJP has singlehandedly dominated these elections, which makes it interesting to see how that might translate into its governance and policymaking behaviour in the new term.
Intra-party deliberations are ongoing with full vigour within the Maha Yuti, as the victor alliance will now decide its chief minister.
