A day after the Assembly election results in Maharashtra, Shiv Sena took a dig at it “Big Brother” BJP, which put up a below-par performance, saying that there was no “maha janadesh” and the outcome was in fact, a rap on the knuckles for those high on “arrogance of power”.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had toured over 200 constituencies, out of the total 288, during his ”Maha Janadesh Yatra” (massive mandate march) ahead of the October 21 polling. On the eve of results on October 24, Fadnavis had talked about the saffron alliance winning 200-plus seats.
In an editorial in its mouthpiece “Saamana”, the Sena, which also saw a drop in its 2014 tally, said the mandate has rejected the notion that elections can be swept by engineering defections and splitting opposition parties.
After analysing the poll results, where the NCP and the Congress had performed better than the previous polls, the Sena said the outcome shows opponents can’t be finished in politics.
“The NCP bounced back crossing the 50-seat mark, while a leaderless Congress won 44 seats. The results were a warning to rulers not to show arrogance of power… its a rap on their knuckles,” the Uddhav Thackeray-led party said.
“The BJP tally came down from 122 (in 2014) to 105 (in 2019), whereas the Shiv Senan’s tally also saw a decrease (from 63 to 56).
“Twenty-five seats have gone to other smaller parties. This shows people have said beware…if you show arrogance of power…,” the editorial said.
The editorial wondered how the NCP-Congress got so many seats despite the BJP and the Shiv Sena firming up a pre-poll alliance.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah addressed several rallies on Article 370. PM Modi addressed a rally in Satara for Udayanraje.
“Chief Minister Fadnavis declared that since Udayanraje is now in the BJP, Chhatrapati Shivaji’s blessings are with the BJP. Still, Satara defeated Udayanraje,” it said.
The Sena said Sharad Pawar proved more powerful than the BJP chief minister.
“There is a lesson to be learnt from this defeat (in Satara, where the NCP won). Fadnavis said he was a powerful wrestler but Sharad Pawar proved more powerful.
“Maharashtra doesn’t accept arrogance of power,” the editorial said and added, “Our feet were always on the ground.”
The BJP-Sena combine bagged around 160 seats in Maharashtra, way below their expectation of crossing the 200-mark.
Earlier, on the day of vote counting, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had reminded the BJP of the 50-50 alliance formula saying that it was time to implement it.
While speaking about the 50-50 alliance formula, Thackeray said, “The main question is, who will be the chief minister?”
Thackeray also said that the mandate in Maharashtra is an eye-opener for many. He said that he is not desperate for power and added that his party has learnt from the lesson the public gave them.