Ritesh Purohit
Mumbai: As the polling for the 285 assembly seats of Maharashtra starts on Wednesday, the question is arises that who will win the battle of wealthiest state of country. Although results will be announced on 19th October, Pre-poll survey suggests that BJP will emerge as the single largest party in the elections, with 120-130 seats. However it couldn’t reach the magical figure of 145. Shiv Sena, Nationalist congress party (NCP) will not get more than 50 seats each. Country’s oldest party congress, which ruled more than 15 years in state, will get only 25-35 seats.
According to the Visionmp.com analysis, NCP too is losing ground, across the state, except one or two region. Maharashtra will have hung Assembly and coalition politics will be the only way out. But the bigger question is: after bitter divorces between BJP-Shiv sena and Congress-NCP, will patch-up really happen?
One factor which affects this assembly poll is leadership crisis. Three key figures of Maharashtra — Bal Thackrey of Shiv Sena, Gopinath Munde of BJP and Vilasrao Deshmukh of Congress — all of whom have died. Munde’s death which might take away from the BJP the leading edge it required over Shiv Sena. Munde made the BJP matter in parts of rural Maharashtra. The name of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has been doing round but there has been no official announcement of the same. BJP is strong in the areas like vidarbha but after the split it has to counter the shiv sena as well as the Raj thackeray’s MNS is areas like Mumbai and Konakan.
The congress is facing leadership crisis too. Congress leader and the man who was the chief minister of Maharashtra, Prithviraj Chauhan, is an unenviable position today. He is the face of the party, which is facing massive anti-incumbency and charges of scams and corruption.
