The Maharashtra gambit: Who will win the state?

Post the Haryana results, the optics are already in the BJP's favour.

- PRIYA SAHGAL

Winning the Maharashtra election is as crucial for the Congress, as Haryana was for the BJP. If the Congress and its allies fail to wrest the state from the BJP (and its allies) then the latter will claim that the recent Lok Sabha results were an aberration and the party retained its winning streak.

Post the Haryana results, the optics are already in the BJP's favour. Before Haryana, political pundits had written off not only that state but also the elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand against the BJP.

But now, all that is changed and once again, the TV debates are all about the BJP's winning ways. It is the domino effect of the Haryana win. One could sense it in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's walk-and talk-when he took the dais at the BJP party headquarters post the Haryana and J&K results. Compare that with the speech he made post the Lok Sabha results.

One could say it took him three months to get his mojo back.

The Congress fortunes seem to be lurching from election to election. A win gives its leader the credibility Rahul Gandhi needs, while a loss has the detractors baring their fangs again. Much more than Modi who has an impressive track record to back the occasional loss, Rahul desperately needs a string of wins. More importantly, he has to deal with the sceptics within.

It's not just the BJP he is dealing with; he first has to convince the allies in the I.N.D.I.A bloc that he has what it takes. The Lok Sabha results gave him that spring in credibility even though a closer look would reveal that in the states where the Congress took the BJP on in a one on one contest, there were mixed results. But in states where the Congress was backed by its allies, the I.N.D.I.A bloc did well, such as Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and even West