Mumbai: The NCP chief Ajit Pawar has strengthened his position in the Mahayuti not only by winning 41 seats but with an impressive strike rate of 65 per cent. This performance has put the full stop on the whispering of whether Ajit Pawar is still relevant for Mahayuti.
The ruling alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party factions led by Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar was ahead in 231 of the state’s 288 seats. Within the Mahayuti, it is the BJP that is ahead; the saffron party is leading in 132 of the 149 seats it is contesting. The Shinde Sena is ahead in 55 of the 81 it is contesting and Ajit Pawar’s NCP 40 of 59.
Considering the figures BJP and Shiv Sena can easily form the government. However, the BJP leadership is in no mood to upset the alliance. Nevertheless, the RSS has some reservations about Ajit Pawar. But the BJP has decided to continue with the three-party alliance even in future. Ajit Pawar’s clout in Western Maharashtra especially in the sugar belt cannot be overlooked and in this backdrop BJP will not desert NCP.
The MVA - decimated after claiming victory in the Lok Sabha election this year, in which it won 30 of the state’s 48 Lok Sabha seats. This time around the MVA managed to get only 52 seats. Its solo show aside, the BJP will still need both the Shinde Sena and Ajit Pawar’s seats to cross the two third majority mark. And it is those two that will put its larger ally out of reach of the MVA. Overall, the Shinde Sena and Ajit Pawar are on course to win 95 seats.
The Mahayuti is en route to a record win in the Maharashtra Assembly election, in which no alliance has ever crossed the magic 200-seat mark. In the Mahayuti, the Shinde Sena and the BJP appear to be at odds on the same issue, with the former batting for Shinde to continue and the latter pitching Fadnavis, who was the Chief Minister when the BJP and (then) undivided Sena were in power between 2014 and 2019. The NCP faction led by Ajit Pawar has thrown its hat in the ring too, on the back of hopes it will emerge as the ‘kingmaker’. However, a clear-cut verdict has ruled out this possibility.
Ajit has been considered to be the weakest link of the Mahayuti alliance since its formation and all through the seat-sharing talks for the election. The taunts along this line have come mostly from leaders of the Sharad Pawar faction of the NCP who claimed the patriarch’s nephew “betrayed” the family only to end up in a “weak position” in Mahayuti.
Comments