Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP established an early lead as votes were counted in Maharashtra and Haryana, where elections were held on Monday. The BJP, which is in power in both states – Maharashtra in alliance with the Shiv Sena – hopes to reinforce its national election victory with two more wins, with the opposition, especially the Congress and its Maharashtra ally Nationalist Congress Party of Sharad Pawar, seen to put up a weak fight. Exit polls have predicted a BJP victory in both states.
A BJP win will be seen as an endorsement of the Narendra Modi government’s policies after its re-election earlier this year — including the move to scrap special status to Jammu and Kashmir and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) — which were the central themes of its campaign. Counting of votes for by-polls in 17 states and one union territory is also being held today.
In Maharashtra, the BJP and its ally Shiv Sena are ahead in 167 of 288 assembly seats. The Congress and its ally Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are ahead in 86 seats. The majority mark is at 145.
In Haryana, the BJP is ahead in 45 of 90 seats and the Congress is leading in 28. The majority mark is 46. A BJP victory means a rerun for Manohar Lal Khattar, despite a mixed track record in the past five years.
An aggregate of 11 exit polls indicated the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance might win 211 seats in Maharashtra. The Congress and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party might manage to win 64 seats, a shade higher than 56 seats they scraped together last time.
Votes are also being counted for by-polls held in 51 assembly seats and two Lok Sabha constituencies spread across 17 states and one union territory. The BJP and its allies have nearly 30 of these assembly seats, the Congress has 12. The rest are with regional parties.
In Uttar Pradesh, by-polls in 11 seats is seen as a mini assembly election of sorts. Besides, there are six seats in Gujarat, Bihar (5 seats), Assam and Punjab (4 seats each), Kerala (5 seats), Sikkim (3 seats), Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu (2 seats each) and one seat each in Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Puducherry, Meghalaya and Telangana.
In Maharashtra, the BJP contested the polls in alliance with long-term partner Shiv Sena, with which it has had a roller-coaster relationship over the last five years. The two parties had contested the 2014 state election separately and neither won a majority. The BJP later formed government with support from the Sena, which has since been a vocal critic of the BJP-led government’s policies at the state and the center.
This time, the Shiv Sena – though given fewer seats than the 50:50 division it wanted — has been offered the post of the Deputy Chief Minister in case of a victory. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will continue to help the government, the BJP has announced.
The Sena candidate for the Deputy Chief Minister’s post is likely to be party chief Uddhav Thackeray’s son Aaditya Thackeray, the first person in his family to contest elections since his grandfather Bal Thackeray formed the party in 1966.
The BJP’s campaign revolved around national themes as the opposition attempted to highlight multiple local issues – unemployment, farm crisis, farmers’ suicides and the slowdown of the economy. That the opposition’s campaign looked lackluster was seen as the symptom of a changing election narrative where the focus is on national issues even when voters choose a local representative.
For the opposition, especially the Congress, a loss will come as a further setback as the party struggles to find its feet after the devastating defeat in the Lok Sabha elections and the subsequent leadership vacuum as Rahul Gandhi quit the party’s top post.
While the BJP deployed a galaxy of leaders to campaign in Maharashtra and Haryana, with PM Modi addressing 16 rallies and Amit Shah 25, Congress’s Rahul Gandhi only addressed seven rallies. His mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi addressed none; her lone rally in Haryana was canceled and Rahul Gandhi was stand-in.
