Maharashtra Poll: Congress is on a serious decline!

-DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL

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Pre-poll and post poll forecasts about the Maharashtra state election have belittled the ruling Congress-NCP and cast the BJP as the chief beneficiary of the poll campaigns, though it would not be able form a ministry on its own.

The youth that hailed Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement has become the base force for BJP now. Maharashtra has clearly vindicated the hunch that people, especially the youth,  are annoyed with the Congress party.

It seems the Siva Sena which broke its traditional alliance with fellow Hindutva BJP, rather Hindutva leader or boss, would feel sorry for its decision in order to win the assembly poll to make a party man the chief minister of Maharashtra.

BJP needs 145 seats for an absolute majority, in order to make sure the party doesn't have to seek post-poll alliances. At this moment, the possibility of alliances seem bleak for the BJP unless the Sena decides to give up its chief ministerial ambitions for the time being and walks back into a post-poll alliance with BJP.

Where BJP is hoping that a Modi wave will sweep Maharashtra poll,  the Sena has gone for a pro-development makeover that BJP made its own in the general elections. Hence, the attempt to push an Aditya Thackeray went beyond the Marathi language, giving speeches in crisp English on radio channels etc.

While parties are making their own calculations, most poll specialists have been wary of predicting results in the state's polls, implying that the parties' own math might go very wrong when the results are revealed. While all the parties have their strongholds, they have mostly acted together in the past few elections making it very difficult to predict votes.

Opinion polls conducted and reported that BJP and Siva Sena are likely to win maximum seats, very similar to the trend in the general poll held a couple of months ago.

According to the opinion poll results, the ruling Congress and NCP bite the dust at the hustings because people have lost interest in these parties that have lost credibility.

The opinion poll done by Cicero for the India Today group predicted that the BJP would win between 121 and 145 seats or a range of 12 seats around the 133 mark. That would mean a gain of over 80 seats from the party's 2009 tally of 46. It also suggested its vote share would more than double from 14% five years ago. On the other hand, the Congress and the NCP are on a serious decline if the opinion polls numbers are to be believed. 

Vote share of BJP has gone up dramatically, hinting at a sharp increase in the number of seats. Marathwada, a Congress stronghold has seen BJP's vote share rise to 40 percent in the predictions from the 14 percent it had in 2009. Northern Maharashtra, which last year's seat count shows, was a NCP stronghold has also seen a rise in the vote share for BJP.

Whereas 2009 Assembly polls' seat tally shows that the Congress dominated several regions in Maharashtra - Vidarbha (24 of 62 seats), Mumbai (18 of 60), Marathwada (18 of  46) - the NCP had its own share of seat glory in Western Maharashtra (20 of 58), Northern Maharashtra (13 of 47) and Konkan (5 of 15). In 2009, the BJP had just 11 percent of the votes in Mumbai region, the predictions show that it might be up to 23 percent this time around.

 Here is an updated graph of what all the exit polls are saying about Maharashtra:

BJP 117-131

Sena 66-76

Cong 30-40

NCP 24-34

MNS 4-10

Here are the final numbers for Mumbai as predicted by ABP-Nielsen:

BJP-26, Sena-25, Cong-2, NCP-3, MNS-2, others-1

And it didn't take long for the BJP to start crowing over the Congress. Congress will be routed badly in the Mumbai. Mumbai final numbers show neck and neck battle between BJP and Sena

 The BJP will be the largest party, but not be able to get a majority on its own.

It shows that the BJP is invested in bringing about a new leadership in the state with young blood - people who are around 20-25 years younger than PM Modi and BJP President Amit Shah.

The Congress party’s rout in Maharashtra would have serious repercussions for the party’s future in India. No one trusts this most experienced ( and hence also the most corrupt)  political party of India.

Not even its traditional supporters, the Muslims.