October 26, 2014
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MAHARASHTRA: Assembly Election Results: A Preliminary Factual Survey

Ashok Dhawale

THE results of the Maharashtra state assembly that were declared on October 19 have led to a hung house. However, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with 122 seats has emerged for the first time as the single largest party and is set to form the next government. A BJP ally, the Rashtriya Samaj Party has won one seat. The Shiv Sena (SS) with 63 seats has emerged as the second largest party. The Congress (INC) with 42 seats is third and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) with 41 seats is fourth. It may be recalled that after a long time, all these four parties fought the elections not in alliance, but separately.

The alliance of Left and secular forces called the Maharashtra Lokshahi Samiti has won five seats – of these three are of the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) compared to four seats that it had won last time. One seat each has been retained by the CPI(M) and the Bharatiya Republican Party-Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM) led by Prakash Ambedkar.

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) led by Raj Thackeray has been cut down to size with only one seat instead of the 13 seats that it had held in the last assembly. This seat too has been won outside its traditional Mumbai-Thane-Nashik support belt. However, the MIM led by Owaisi has made a disturbing debut by winning two seats – one each in Mumbai and Aurangabad. The Samajwadi Party (SP) has won one seat (compared to four last time) and the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA) has won three seats (compared to two last time). With seven independents having won, this completes the picture of 288 seats in the assembly. Although the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) contested several seats, it has drawn a blank. The CPI and the JD(S) have been without assembly representation for several years now. 

The comparative picture of seats won and vote share of the four major parties in the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections of 2009 and 2014 is given in the chart below:

 

Party

2009 LS

2014 LS

2009 VS

2014 VS

Seats Won

Vote %  

Seats Won

Vote % 

Seats Won

Vote % 

Seats Won

Vote % 

BJP

9

18.2

23

27.3

46

14.0

122

27.8

SS

11

17.0

18

20.6

44

16.3

63

19.3

INC

17

19.6

2

18.1

82

21.0

42

18.0

NCP

8

19.3

4

16.0

62

16.4

41

17.2

 

Compared to the Lok Sabha elections held about six months ago, the picture has changed in terms of seats, though not much in terms of vote share. In the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP-SS alliance had swept 42 seats out of 48 (including one seat to their ally). At that time they were leading in as many as 244 assembly segments out of 288. Now the BJP-SS combined total of seats won is 186. The BJP was leading in 132 assembly segments then; now it has won 122 seats. The SS was leading in 100 segments then; now it has won only 63 seats. BJP-SS allies were leading in 12 segments then; now they have won only one seat. On the other hand, the Congress which led in only 14 assembly segments then, has now won 42 seats. And the NCP which led in 26 assembly segments then, has now won 41 seats. The smaller parties led in only 4 assembly segments then; now all of them together have won 19 seats.

The vote share of some of the smaller parties in the last two Vidhan Sabha polls is as follows: the MNS has plummeted from 5.7 percent to 3.1 percent. The BSP retains its vote at 2.3 percent. The SP has come down from 0.7 to 0.2 percent. The MIM has managed to take in 0.9 percent. The BVA retains 0.6 percent.

The PWP retains its 1 percent share and the BBM its 0.9 percent share. The CPI(M) share has reduced from 0.6 to 0.4 percent. The CPI and the JD(S) are at around 0.1 percent each. The picture for the Left secular parties is far from satisfactory over the last several years.  

Some exit polls had predicted an absolute majority for the BJP but this did not happen. When it became evident that there would be a hung assembly and even before all the results were declared, Praful Patel and then Sharad Pawar of the NCP rushed to declare that it would “give unconditional outside support to the BJP to form a government in the larger interests of the state.” All through the election campaign, Sharad Pawar and his cronies were attacking the RSS, BJP and Narendra Modi. The reason for this volte face is clear – many former central and state ministers of the NCP including Praful Patel, Ajit Pawar, Sunil Tatkare and Chhagan Bhujbal are facing corruption charges, and supporting the BJP is now perhaps their only way to insure themselves for the future.

At the time of writing this piece, attempts are being made by the BJP to once again rope in the SS to form a government. The BJP is using the offer of unconditional support by the NCP to pressurise the SS to come to a deal. Both the SS and the BJP, despite the bitter slanging match that they indulged in during the election campaign, have retained the SS minister in the union cabinet. The BJP also continues its support to the SS in the Mumbai municipal corporation and other local bodies. What eventually happens will become clear soon.

This is only a preliminary factual picture; an analysis of the election results will be conducted by the CPI(M) Maharashtra state committee when it meets in the beginning of November.

 

CPI(M)’S

PERFORMANCE

The CPI(M) won back the Kalwan (ST) seat in Nashik district in this election. CPI(M) state secretariat member, AIKS state vice president and popular Adivasi leader J P Gavit won this seat for the Party. J P Gavit has won as MLA six times earlier from the Surgana (ST) seat, which after delimitation became the Kalwan (ST) seat. The Party had lost this seat in 2009. Here the voting figures in the current election are: CPI(M) – 67,795; NCP – 63,009; BJP – 25,457; SS – 9,024; INC – 5,699; BSP – 1,395; Independent – 887; NOTA – 1,623. This was certainly an important victory for the Party.

The other seat that the CPI(M) expected to win was the Dahanu (ST) seat in the new Palghar district (old Thane district) which it had won without a break eight times since 1978. The CPI(M) lost this seat to the BJP by 16,700 votes this time due to various factors – the presence of a rebel candidate, a part of the NCP votes shifting to the BJP, discontent within the SS against its candidate who at the last moment was imported from the NCP, and so on. The CPI(M) candidate – Party state committee member and AIKS state joint secretary Barkya Mangat – stood second in this seat by taking 28,149 votes.

The third seat that the Party expected to win was the Solapur city central seat, where our candidate was CPI(M) Central Committee member, CITU state president and three-time former MLA, Narsayya Adam. Here the communal polarisation between the MIM on the one hand and the SS and BJP on the other, along with the massive money power of the Congress whose candidate was the daughter of former union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, were the main factors that led to our shock defeat. The Party stood fifth with 13,904 votes.

Apart from the above three seats, in four more seats the CPI(M) got over 10,000 votes. These seats along with the names of the candidates were: Nashik West in Nashik district (Dr D L Karad) – 16,870 votes; Dindori (ST) in Nashik district (Adv Dattu Padvi) – 13,924 votes; Vikramgad (ST) in Palghar district (Ratan Budhar) – 13,152 votes; and Akole (ST) in Ahmednagar district (Namdev Bhangare) – 11,861 votes.

The total number of votes secured by the CPI(M) in this election in 20 seats was 2,07,933. In 1999, the Party had secured 2,10,030 votes in 23 seats; in 2004 the Party had got 2,59,667 votes in 16 seats; and in 2009 the Party had got 2,70,052 votes in 20 seats.

The CPI(M) Maharashtra state committee will self-critically review its performance in detail and will come to appropriate conclusions when it meets early next month.