Will Maharashtra Be Achilles Heel For The NDA?
The Lok Sabha exit poll 2024 for Maharashtra has predicted a neck-to-neck battle between the two alliances in the state. Most of the exit polls showed that the Uddhav Thackeray-Sharad Pawar-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is expected to harm the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA alliance in the state.
Maharashtra has been a talking point ever since the beginning of the Lok Sabha polls with the split of the two parties initiated by the saffron party for their electoral gains. This has led to a sympathy wave in the state.
In the 2019 election, BJP unified with Shiv Sena has gained 42 seats out of 48 Lok Sabha seats. Of these, BJP has won 23 seats while Shiv Sena won 18.
However, it is important to note whether the BJP-engineered splits in the Shiv Sena and the National Congress Party have helped the party in transferring the votes to their account. Does the separated faction have any vote share? If not, will the BJP continue to hold onto the alliance? June 4 results are expected to add more twists to the Maharashtra politics.
The factors that complicated the situation in the state included the Maratha reservation demand from the OBC quota. And this has sharpened the caste politics in the state. If there is Martha consolidation for the INDIA bloc, then a reverse OBC consolidation for the NDA could have also occurred. So which side would surpass the other will be the factor to look out for.
If the exit poll is to be taken into account, keeping aside the unassailable hold of NDA on the state, the opposition will thrive as they have not only halted the BJP’s juggernaut but also was successful in pushing them to the corner.
As per the exit poll, the Shiv Sena (UBT) will win 14 out of 21 seats it has contested. At the same time, the NCP-Sharad Pawar faction added two or three more to the previous tally. The grand old party is too expected to improve its tally to four to six.
Meanwhile, the NDA is expected to win between 23 to 32 seats.
The pollsters are however sure of one point that the BJP would either retain or reach its previous tally. However, its newly procured partners are set to suffer significant damage which would damage the NDA tally.
What makes its more interesting is that the post-June politics in Maharashtra will design the upcoming state assembly election in October. Even if the opposition failed to reach the 295 mark they had set, they were successful in making the saffron party’s fight in Maharashtra on its own terms.
Moreover, after failing every attempt by the BJP to set the narrative and turn the battle using the ‘Modi factor’, NDA’s lack of success in Maharashtra is expected to be larger than what the exit poll has suggested. However, the saffron party as of now is capable enough to settle the dust raised by the parliamentary election results.
