Maharashtra: What BJP's Twin Victories In MLC Elections Could Mean For State Politics

In a major setback to the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance in Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won four out of the six seats that were up for election in the state legislative council.

The BJP candidates secured huge victories in Vidarbha's Nagpur and Akola-Buldhana-Washim local government constituencies.

The BJP’s victory in these elections is quite significant as they have managed to breach through the assured votes of the MVA candidates. It is evident that cross-voting by the MVA allies — the Shiv Sena, the NCP and the Congress — resulted in the BJP candidates securing more votes than their elected representatives.

Addressing the media, former chief minister and leader of opposition in the Maharashtra assembly Devendra Fadnavis said that the BJP has busted the myth that three parties — Shiv Sena, NCP, and Congress — can win every election in the state by contesting together.

MVA Suffers Major Setback As BJP Wins Big

The legislative council elections, for two seats, were held on 10 December, and the results for the same were announced on 14 December. Earlier, four of the six seats were decided without any voting as the respective nominees won unopposed.

The BJP and the MVA both secured two seats each as their candidates were elected unopposed, levelling the score at “2-2” before the polls for the remaining two seats were to be held.

In the election for two seats in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the Shiv Sena (Sunil Shinde) and the BJP (Rajhans Singh) bagged one seat each. The Kolhapur seat was won by Congress (Satej Patil), while Nandurbar-Dhule went unopposed to BJP (Amrishbhai Patel).

In a major upset on the Akola-Washim-Buldhana seat, three-time Shiv Sena legislator, Gopikishan Bajoria lost to BJP’s Vasant Khandelwal by a margin of more than 100 votes. Out of the total 808 votes, Khandelwal bagged 443 votes while Bajoria secured 334 only.

On the other hand, in Nagpur, BJP candidate and former state energy minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule defeated Mangesh Deshmukh, the MVA-backed independent candidate, by over 150 votes.

According to the district information office, of the 554 votes polled, Bawankule secured 362 votes, while Deshmukh got 186 votes.

It was just before the polling that the Congress nominee Ravindra Bhoyar expressed his inability to contest, following which the MVA extended its support to the independent candidate Deshmukh.

However, Bhoyar later contested the poll and got only one vote.

BJP’s Attack On Congress Leadership, MVA Alleges Horse-trading

"The MVA was claiming that they will win all the elections as three parties have come together. We have busted this myth and I think that this victory has laid the foundation for our future wins,” said an elated Devendra Fadnavis.

Vasant Khandelwal attributed his victory over the three-time Shiv Sena legislator to the successful strategy of the party leadership.

“For two days, they indulged in horse trading, even then they could not keep their party together. This is in the real sense the defeat of Congress leaders. The Congress leaders were behaving in an autocratic manner. Nana Patole is not fit to work as the (state) party chief and he should resign,” said BJP MLC Bawankule.

Leader of opposition Pravin Darekar, suggesting that the Congress should take lessons from the BJP on how to win elections, said, “Arithmetic does not work in politics; chemistry does. And political chemistry is with us."

However, the MVA allies were in no mood to congratulate their opponent as they downplayed the BJP’s victory alleging large-scale horse trading and manipulation.

"We will analyse what went wrong. But just one victory in Nagpur should not make anybody arrogant. It is not like they won the entire state,” state Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe said.

‘’The law should be enacted for holding council elections on the lines of Rajya Sabha polls in which voting is done as per the party whip,’’ said NCP spokesman and minority affairs minister Nawab Malik, claiming that the BJP had indulged in cross-voting with the help of moneybags.

The Political Message In BJP’s Victory

The result of the council polls came as a boost to the BJP’s confidence and as a wake-up call to the MVA alliance. While the NCP had no stakes in these polls, the battle was between BJP and the Shiv Sena-Congress combine.

Interestingly, MVA was over confident that their alliance could defeat the BJP with ease, but probable overconfidence, miscalculations, and lack of coordination within and outside the party as well as the alliance resulted in setbacks.

On the other hand, a united BJP under Fadnavis’ leadership took advantage of the inter- and intra-party differences in the opposing faction as it succeeded in luring in the disgruntled elements from the MVA.

For example, the MVA had 202 accredited votes in the Nagpur seat, but despite that, the MVA-backed candidate only got 186 votes, i.e. the BJP managed to secure at least 16 votes from the MVA camp in cross-voting.

It must be noted that BJP MLC Bawankule, who won the Nagpur seat, was aggrieved with the party since 2019 assembly elections as he was denied the MLA ticket. However, the BJP leadership took him into confidence and the resentment wasn't allowed to turn into something bigger.

On the other hand, the MVA was not even able to field Bhoyar, who recently defected to Congress from the BJP.

Bawankule’s victory in Nagpur will further reinforce the BJP’s outreach among the other backwards castes (OBCs), especially since the Supreme Court has recently scrapped the 27 per cent reservation in local bodies in Maharashtra.