Congress, BJP Gird Up for Largest Party Status in Maharashtra
A public meeting of Maha Vikas Aghadi in Raver Assembly seat. Image credit X.com @INCMaharashtra
Opposition Hopes to Gain from ‘Trust Deficit’ in Mahayuti in Maharashtra
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, November 7: The Maharashtra political chessboard is inviting closer scrutiny amid an avalanche of rebels in almost all parties. The political pundits opine that rebels hold cues for the winner of the Maharashtra Assembly elections.
The incumbent Mahayuti alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is facing an open rebellion. Similar is the scene in the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance led by the Congress. The top guns of both the alliances are fretting to buy peace with rebels.
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The BJP-led alliance also consisting of the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and the Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar) are fighting off apparent anti-incumbency. The Lok Sabha rout of the ruling alliance has sent the top strategists of the alliance to manoeuvre way out of the anti-incumbency task.
The Opposition alliance had registered an emphatic victory in the Lok Sabha elections. The Maha Vikas Aghadi had won 30 out of the total 48 Lok Sabha seats from Maharashtra this year. If the outcome of the parliamentary elections was to repeat, then the BJP-led alliance may be staring at a rout in the Assembly polls.
Yet, the BJP appears to be making determined bid to emerge the largest political party after the elections. The BJP by fielding candidates on 162 of the total 288 Assembly seats seeks to take the lead position after the polls.
The Congress is contesting on 102 Assembly seats while being accommodative to the alliance partners in seat adjustment. The Congress, said party insiders, is aiming at a high strike rate to emerge the largest political party after the elections.
Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi is paying special attention to Maharashtra elections. He has visited the state twice in recent days while pitching the reservation plank at the forefront.
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By raising the demand for caste census, Gandhi is spurring the Congress poll campaign around the reservation politics. The Maratha reservation has been reverberating in Maharashtra for more than five years.
Gandhi is also laying special emphasis on Dalit electorate. He had cooked meals at the household of a Dalit party workers in Kolhapur last month. The Congress hopes to make gains from the Dalit-OBC-Muslim electorate.
The BJP-led alliance is banking on welfarism push and also on the replication of Madhya Pradesh’s Ladli Behna Yojna. The Congress is seeking to blunt the saffron charge with Mahalaxmi Yojna in which the party is promising ₹3000 per month to the women in Maharashtra.
The Congress is hoping to make windfall gains from an apparent dissension in the ranks of the ruling Mahayuti alliance. The ruling alliance has not projected the chief ministerial face for the Maharashtra Assembly elections. The Opposition is hoping that the deepening trust deficit between the BJP and the Shiv Sena of the incumbent chief minister Eknath Shinde would help the Opposition bloc.
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