Fadnawhiz!

A defining outcome of this election is the emergence of Devendra Fadnavis as the tallest leader in Maharashtra

- DNYANESH JATHAR

The stunning victory of the Mahayuti, the alliance of the BJP, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party, in the Maharashtra assembly polls has provided answers to many questions. The Mahayuti won 235 of 288 seats, with the BJP bagging 132, and the Sena and the NCP winning 57 and 41 seats, respectively. The Maha Vikas Aghadi, the opposition alliance that includes the Congress, Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP) and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT), could win just 50 seats.

For the MVA, it is a massive debacle. Many of its key leaders were defeated, including former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, Balasaheb Thorat and Yashomati Thakur. State Congress president Nana Patole scraped through with a margin of around 200 votes. The Congress was left with just 16 seats, while the Shiv Sena and the NCP(SP) won 20 and 10, respectively.

Politics of populism and freebies, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi once derided as “revdi culture”, seems to have triumphed in Maharashtra. Schemes like Ladki Bahin Yojana (which pays underprivileged women ₹1,500 a month), free electricity to farmers, and apprenticeship allowance to unemployed youth turned out to be key vote-winners. The task before the new government now is to fulfil its promises, prominent among them being the pledge to increase the Ladki Bahin payouts to ₹2,100.

Among the questions that the results have answered are which factions of the Shiv Sena and the NCP hold sway. Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar emerged as dominant leaders, sidelining Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar. Ajit reportedly told nephew Rohit Pawar of the NCP(SP) that Rohit could win Karjat-Jamkhed only because he had chosen not to address a rally there. After winning by just 1,200 votes, Rohit was seen touching Ajit’s feet.