New Delhi:

The Congress continued its losing spree on Saturday posting its worst-ever show in Maharashtra and ending up as a distant junior partner to the ruling JMM in Jharkhand, with further diminishing role in the opposition bloc as other allies perform better.

While the INDIA bloc’s victory in Jharkhand was some consolation, losing a big state like Maharashtra after the upset in Haryana is likely to weaken the grand old party’s broad bargaining power in this era of coalition politics.

The poor show of Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in Maharashtra extinguished hopes of getting Rajya Sabha seats from the state in future.

On the other hand, the NDA with its stupendous victory is set to get a majority in the Upper House in the next cycle of biennial elections.

Despite being the dominant party of the opposition MVA in Maharashtra, the Congress failed to pull the weight of the opposition bloc and stood decimated in the face of an NDA tsunami.

The Congress which contested the highest number of assembly seats among MVA allies, 101 out of 288, was winning or leading in only 16 seats with one of the lowest strike rates of 16 per cent.

The worst strike rate in Maharashtra elections was of Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP) at 11.6 per cent (with lead/win in 10 seats out of 86 fought), Shiv Sena (UBT) managing 22 per cent (lead/ win in 21 seats as against 95 contested).

On the other hand, the strike rate of the BJP was the highest with 88.6 per cent (lead/win in 132 seats out of 149 it contested).

The BJP got a vote share of 26.78 per cent and was followed by Shiv Sena with 12.38 per cent and NCP with 9.01 per cent. Among the MVA, the Congress had the highest vote share of 12.42 per cent, followed by NCP-SP with 11.28 and Shiv Sena (UBT) with 9.96 per cent.

Interestingly, other parties got more vote share of 13.82 per cent than each of the MVA partners.

Among some of the prominent Congress leaders who lost in Maharashtra were former CM Prithviraj Chavan, senior leader and eight-term MLA Balasaheb Thorat, ex-CM Vilasrao Deshmukh’s son Dhiraj Deshmukh in Latur rural, Yashomati Thakur, Ramesh Bagwe and Ganpatrao Patil.

Among MVA allies, those who lost include Harshvardhan Patil and Sharad Pawar’s grand nephews Rohit Pawar and Yugendra Pawar, all from NCP-SP. Besides, Amit Thackeray, son of MNS leader Raj Thackeray, also lost in his political debut.

Maharashtra has given several tall leaders to the Congress including Y B Chavan, Murli Deora, Sharad Pawar, Vasant Sathe, Sushilkumar Shinde and Shivraj Patil.

In Jharkhand, it was Chief Minister Hemant Soren-led JMM that saw the ruling coalition through as his party gained a four percentage vote share over the last elections while the share of the rest of the parties either fell or remained stagnant.

The BJP in Jharkhand got 33.18 per cent vote share while JMM got 23.44 per cent and the Congress 15.56 per cent.

The AJSUP (NDA ally) lost around 5 per cent vote share compared to 2019 and the JMM gained that 5 per cent, while Congress gained 2 per cent. The JMM won 34 seats while the Congress won 16 seats, with RJD winning 4 seats and CPI-ML in 2 seats. The BJP won 21 seats.

The Saturday outcomes revealed that the Congress continued to falter on the slippery electoral landscape, struggling to win or improve in states where it is ruling and failing to uplift alliances where it is the senior partner.

In Haryana, where the Congress and BJP were in direct contest, the party could not convert the anti-incumbency of BJP’s two terms into a win. Now in Maharashtra, it was unable to retain its Lok Sabha gains or help its allies pull through after the MVA had won 30 out of 48 Lok Sabha seats in general elections.

Earlier in Jammu and Kashmir also, the National Conference had powered the INDIA coalition to victory while the Congress ended up a distant junior ally in the poll results.

With the regional players outshining the Congress in successive polls, the party’s position in the opposition bloc is likely to weaken.

In Maharashtra and Jharkhand, the Congress was on a sticky wicket even during seat negotiations with other allies after losing Haryana to the BJP for the third straight time.

Questions are also expected to be raised on the working style and political outlook of Congress party’s chief strategist Rahul Gandhi who has of late focused heavily on caste census and Adani-Ambani bashing as his key electoral planks.

Both issues appear to have failed to resonate among the people at large in the poll-bound states.

The sole glimmer of hope for the Congress today was a comfortable Lok Sabha byelection win for Rahul Gandhi’s sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in Kerala’s Wayanad. The Congress also won the Nanded Lok Sabha seat, which it held earlier.

The party also won byelections to all three assembly seats in Karnataka, wresting one each from the BJP and JD(S), and retained Palakkad assembly seat in Kerala.

But that victory paled in comparison to the party’s broad loss, mainly in India’s richest state which was the ideal ground to return a verdict on Rahul’s anti-Gautam Adani and anti-Mukesh Ambani pitch.

In bypolls in Punjab, the wives of both PCC chief Raja Warring and former deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Randhawa lost.

With today’s results, the Congress will enter the 2025 election cycle morally and psychologically depleted.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

For Congress, the “priority is only and only the family”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Saturday in his address to party workers after the big Maharashtra win, contrasting it with his own party, the BJP, which he said is focused on building a “developed India”. 

“Elections will come and go, victory and defeat will continue in democracy, but the aim of BJP and NDA is not limited to just winning elections. Our aim is not limited to just forming the government, we have set out to build the country, we have set out to build a developed India,” said PM Modi, underlining his vision for his party.  

The Prime Minister said the Congress’ outsized interest in its own welfare is a “threat to democracy”. 

“The Congress party’s sole focus is on the family, disregarding the welfare of the nation’s people. A party that prioritises family over citizens poses a significant threat to democracy,” said PM Modi.

The Prime Minister said today’s India needs ease of living and for that it trusts BJP and the National Democratic Alliance or NDA.

“Development, good governance and social justice have won in Maharashtra. Lies and deceit have suffered a crushing defeat. Today negative politics has been defeated. Today ‘Parivarvad’ have been defeated. Today Maharashtra has strengthened the resolve for a developed India. I congratulate all the workers of BJP and NDA across the country,” PM Modi said. 

In the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly, the BJP won 132 seats out of the 148 seats it contested. In 2014 and 2019, the BJP became the first party since 1990 to win over 100 seats in the assembly, 123 and 105 seats respectively. The BJP is set to form government in the state.

“People have made divisive forces bite the dust. The Congress and its allies have failed to grasp the changed realities of the country’s mood,” the Prime Minister said reflecting on the results and the Congress’ poor show. The Congress won just 16 seats.

He asserted that voters do not want instability and they believe in nation first and do not like those dreaming about “chair first”.

The Prime Minister further slammed the Congress for its alleged “urban Naxalism”, a pejorative term, calling it a new challenge before the country.

“Today Congress’s urban Naxalism has emerged as a new challenge for India. The remote control of these Urban Naxals is outside the country and hence everyone has to be very cautious about Urban Naxalism,” the Prime Minister cautioned.

The Prime Minister said the Congress has become a parasitic party, and it is increasingly difficult for it to form government on its own. 

“Any dedicated Congress worker finds it difficult to work there (in the party). Do only people from one family have the right to run Congress. Old Congress leaders are searching for that old party of theirs,” said the Prime Minister.

The opposition alliance suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the BJP-led ruling alliance in Maharashtra. But what could add insult to this injury is if the figures remain more or less the same till the last round of counting in all the seats as then no party in the Maha Vikas Aghadi or MVA – Shiv Sena (UBT), Congress and NCP (SP) – will be eligible for the post of the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the newly elected Maharashtra Legislative Assembly.

A party with 10 percent of the 288 seats or 29 seats can claim the post. However, all of the MVA parties are at the moment falling short of the mark, as per the legislative rules.

According to the latest Election Commission figures at 6pm, the Shiv Sena (UBT) won 13 seats and was leading in 7, Congress won 6 and was ahead in 9 while NCP (SP) bagged six seats and was leading in 4.

Even though the opposition alliance will achieve the required number if all their winning seats were added but the combined strength of parties is not considered for the post of the Leader of Opposition, as per the rules.

So, given the current circumstances, the 15th Maharashtra Legislative Assembly may function without the LoP, similar to the 16th Lok Sabha which did not have a Leader of Opposition. The states of Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Manipur, Nagaland and Sikkim also don’t have anyone in the post because of the lack of opposition parties with at least 10 percent seats.

The BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP coalition appears to retain Maharashtra with their spectacular performance, posting a stunning comeback after the Lok Sabha debacle earlier this year.

The ruling Mahayuti alliance has either won or is leading in 231 of the 288 seats.

The BJP has so far won 67 seats and is leading in 66, the Shiv Sena has won 35 and is ahead in 22 seats, while the NCP has won 28 and is leading in 13 seats, as per the latest Election Commission figures.

The results have come as a setback for Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray as the assembly elections followed splits in their parties. The Bal Thackeray-founded Shiv Sena split in June 2022 after Eknath Shinde rebelled against the then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray bringing down his government while Mr Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar walked away to join the ruling alliance in 2023.

Since then, the factions have been in a bitter battle for supremacy.

After the results, termed “historic” by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several others in the BJP and its alliance partners, the buzzing question is who would be the Chief Minister.

Even as many are rooting for deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis for the top post, both he and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde have maintained that all parties will meet and decide who the leader will be.

New Delhi:

Maharashtra in the bag with a thumping majority, the ruling alliance Mahayuti is now facing the complicated task of choosing a Chief Minister — to which both BJP and current Chief Minister Eknath Shinde have a claim. As reporters clamoured today to have a straight answer to the question during the press conference of the alliance, Mr Shinde’s Deputy, Devendra Fadnavis — seen as the front-runner for the post this time — had everyone laughing with his response.

Asked who would have to “sacrifice” this time, Mr Fadnavis said, “First the three parties will choose their leaders. Then we have to call all the MLAs… Do not worry. We will ask everyone for their opinion. We will even take the advice of Athawale ji (Ramdas Athwale)”.

Union minister Mr Athawale is the chief of the Republican Party of India (Athawale), one of the smaller allies of the Mahayuti, which contested the Kalina seat under the BJP symbol, but is trailing the Shiv Sena faction of Uddhav Thackeray.

Mr Athawale, still, had been vocal, predicting a victory for the ruling alliance with at least 175 seats — falling, happily, widely off the mark. The alliance has swept the election, leading in 233 of the state’s 288 seats. 

The alliance had gone into battle without projecting a face for the top post, though Mr Shinde has been its face during campaigning. While all constituents of the alliance have denied having any differences over the matter, there is speculation that there may be a replay of 2019 over the Chief Minister post. 

Five years ago, Uddhav Thackeray, claiming that BJP was reneging on its deal of a rotating Chief Ministership, had broken the decades-old alliance and formed government with the Congress and Sharad Pawar — a move the BJP labelled power-hungry. 

In 2022, Mr Shinde had rebelled, with much the same accusation, split the Sena and formed government with the BJP, which had rewarded him with the Chief Minister post. 

Devendra Fadnavis, a former Chief Minister and the BJP’s most prominent face in the state, was coaxed into taking the spot of Mr Shinde’s Deputy by the BJP’s central leadership. But it had irked the party’s rank and file, given the number of seats the BJP commanded. 

This time, Mr Fadnavis is reportedly in the pole position, with the BJP set to scoop up 149 of the alliance’s 280-odd seats. 

There have been reports that the party’s chief strategist and Union minister Amit Shah had been quietly working behind the scenes to make his candidature more acceptable — raising questions on the fallout on the alliance. 

Mr Fadnavis has been underscoring the “Batenge toh katenge (Divided we fall)” slogan of Yogi Adityanath since morning.