Congress-NCP hold the Maha Fort
By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee
The results for the three Assembly elections are out and its Congress which has made a clean sweep over BJP and the NDA coalition all over the country. While Congress victory in Arunachal Pradesh and Harayana was anticipated much before the polls, Maharashtra was the place where the entire nation had their eyes.
For one this was the second largest state (by population) in India going to polls and secondly it was a state where the NDA and the UPA were head to head.
The results are finally out and the Congress-NCP alliance has defied anti-incumbency and managed to hold power for the third consecutive time. For the BJP and the Shiv Sena it was another demoralising defeat which the NDA camp is slowly getting used to. Congress and NCP managed to cross the halfway mark of 144 by a whisker grabbing 145 seats in the 288 member house. In the end the ruling coalition just about managed to return home.
It wasn't a thumbs up victory for the Congress-NCP but more of a defeat of the opposition. Considering the amount of dissent that people in rural Maharashtra had with the government BJP-Sena could have fared much better had they managed their election campaign properly. Demoralised by the Lok Sabha polls BJP seems to be a party in decline which is unable to regroup itself. Congress had gone through a similar phase post 1996 Lok Sabha defeat.
The Sena-BJP combine might like to rest blame on Raj Thackrey and the MNS but the truth NDA seems to have lost its connect with people in general. MNS making its debut in the State Assembly seems to have done well managing 13 seats. They have surely dented BJP-Sena's chances of forming a government by eating into their vote share. Many analysts are drawing the map which shows that had the estranged Thackrey brothers been together results could have been different. Had Bal Thackrey not favoured his son over his more able nephew he would have surely distributing sweets in Mumbai.
Congress has come stronger over NCP and which means the keys to the new government will be in Sonia Gandhi's hands and not in Sharad Pawar's. Congress which had stressed on the coalition to be under its terms after its performance in the Lok Sabha polls has closed the door for Mr. Pawar to blackmail it any more. A grand Maratha NCP-Sena alliance is out of the picture and Mr. Pawar will have to listen to 10 Janpath for the next five years both at the centre and the state.
For one this was the second largest state (by population) in India going to polls and secondly it was a state where the NDA and the UPA were head to head.The results are finally out and the Congress-NCP alliance has defied anti-incumbency and managed to hold power for the third consecutive time. For the BJP and the Shiv Sena it was another demoralising defeat which the NDA camp is slowly getting used to. Congress and NCP managed to cross the halfway mark of 144 by a whisker grabbing 145 seats in the 288 member house. In the end the ruling coalition just about managed to return home.
It wasn't a thumbs up victory for the Congress-NCP but more of a defeat of the opposition. Considering the amount of dissent that people in rural Maharashtra had with the government BJP-Sena could have fared much better had they managed their election campaign properly. Demoralised by the Lok Sabha polls BJP seems to be a party in decline which is unable to regroup itself. Congress had gone through a similar phase post 1996 Lok Sabha defeat.
The Sena-BJP combine might like to rest blame on Raj Thackrey and the MNS but the truth NDA seems to have lost its connect with people in general. MNS making its debut in the State Assembly seems to have done well managing 13 seats. They have surely dented BJP-Sena's chances of forming a government by eating into their vote share. Many analysts are drawing the map which shows that had the estranged Thackrey brothers been together results could have been different. Had Bal Thackrey not favoured his son over his more able nephew he would have surely distributing sweets in Mumbai.
Congress has come stronger over NCP and which means the keys to the new government will be in Sonia Gandhi's hands and not in Sharad Pawar's. Congress which had stressed on the coalition to be under its terms after its performance in the Lok Sabha polls has closed the door for Mr. Pawar to blackmail it any more. A grand Maratha NCP-Sena alliance is out of the picture and Mr. Pawar will have to listen to 10 Janpath for the next five years both at the centre and the state.
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