Maharashtra election 2024: All eyes are on the crucial poll in Maharashtra where voting for 288 assembly seats will be held in a single phase on November 20.
About 9.63 crore eligible voters of Maharashtra will seal the fate of as many as 4,140 candidates who are in fray
Maharashtra polls: Parties in alliance
The key Maharashtra election 2024 will see a tough competition between ruling Mahayuti alliance which include the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) faction led by Ajit Pawar.
This alliance will contest against the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) which comprises of Congress, Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT), Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP), Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP), and the Peasants and Workers Party of India.
Number of seats parties contesting in Maharashtra polls
Within the Mahayuti, the BJP is contesting the highest number of seats at 148, Shinde’s Shiv Sena follows with 85 seats and Ajit Pawar-led NCP with 55.
Among the MVA alliance, Congress will field candidates in 102 seats, Shiv Sena (UBT) in 94, and Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP) in 85. The Samajwadi Party will field candidates on nine seats, while the Peasants and Workers Party of India will contest on four.
Will Shinde remain CM if BJP’s alliances win Maharashtra polls?
The countdown for 2024 Maharashtra polls has started, but who will be the Chief Ministerial candidate of Mahayuti alliance if people vote them in majority still remains a suspense.
The silence on who could be the Maharashtra Chief Minister if Mahayuti wins majority in the state, BJP leadership and workers are seemingly indicating that it is keen on assuming the role of “big brother” in the alliance to ensure Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s return to the top post.
Union Home Minister and senior BJP leader Amit Shah, after unveiling the party manifesto in Mumbai, recently said: “At present, Eknath Shinde is the Chief Minister, but after the polls, all three constituents of the Mahayuti will sit together and decide the next CM.”
People want to see ‘return of Mahayuti & Fadnavis’
Addressing an election rally in Maharashtra’s Sangli recently, Shah touched upon “CM issue” and claimed that the public wanted to see the “return of the Mahayuti and Fadnavis.”
A report by The Indian Express mentioned another senior BJP leader, requesting anonymity, as supporting Fadnavis for the CM’s post.
“At the grassroots level, the sentiment within the right wing is (Narendra) Modi for the country and Fadnavis for Maharashtra,” the leader said.
However, in an interview with the publication recently, Maharashtra BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule said “the CM post is not on our agenda at this moment.”
What others in Mahayuti alliance have to say?
Meanwhile, Shiv Sena has clearly said that if Mahayuti returns to power in Maharashtra, Eknath Shinde will continue to serve as the Chief Minister of the state.
“For us, Eknath Shinde is the CM and will be the CM after the polls too,” the IE report quoted a Shiv Sena leader and senior Cabinet minister in Shinde-led Maharashtra government as saying.
The Ajit Pawar-led NCP, however, remains cautious in its statements, with state party chief Sunil Tatkare saying that right now the focus was to bring the Mahayuti back to power. “The larger issues like CM, etc are best left to the top leadership after the elections,” he added.
‘No point of discussion now’
The IE report sources within NCP and Shinde-led Sena as saying that in a coalition, there are several factors which are considered before finalising the CM face, especially if no single party gets a majority on its own.
“There is no point getting into this discussion now,” a source was quoted as saying by the report.
Why Fadnavis is getting support for Maharashtra CM post?
There are two possible reasons why Fadnavis is getting support for becoming the next chief minister of Maharashtra.
1 – It is largely believed that Fadnavis took bold administrative measures during his last tenure between 2014 and 2019 which were centred towards the welfare of Maharashtra.
2 – Also, there are a number of people within BJP and in RSS who feel that in 2022, Fadnavis was made to sacrifice the chief ministerial post to accommodate the Sena in the NDA. They are of the opinion that if BJP comes to power on its own strength, it should happen again.
The BJP and undivided Sena were in alliance ahead of the 2019 Maharashtra election. The alliance projected Fadnavis to be the CM and after his state-wide Janadesh Yatra, the BJP emerged as the single-largest party with victory on 105 seats, while undivided Sena followed with win on 56.
Soon there was differences over the CM’s post, after which the undivided Sena severed alliance and joined hands with the Congress and the undivided NCP to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government with Uddhav Thackeray as CM.
The Thackeray-led government could only survive for two-and-a-half years as Shinde rebelled and joined the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance with support of 41 of the 56 MLAs, helping the NDA to come to power again.
Fadnavis, who was seen as the architect of the rebellion, suggested that Shinde should be the CM and said he would not be the part of the government. However, the BJP top brass “convinced” him to join the government as Deputy CM, citing his administrative experience and to keep the government “stable”.
With inputs from agencies.
