Vote split, Vidarbha packages help Cong

Thanks to a clean sweep of Mumbai and substantial gains in Vidarbha, the Congress-NCP slate was able to check an anti-incumbency mood after nine years in power abd win 25 of the 48 seats in Maharashtra.

In Mumbai, the Congress was helped by the vote-splitting done by the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (MNS). In Vidarbha, the farmers’ loan waiver seems to have worked. NCP's hope of emerging the largest party by beating the drum of Pawar for Premiership got a major jolt, as it is going to be restricted to just eight or nine seats.

In fact, the MNS factor caused so much hurt to the opposition saffron combine, that in at least two seats, the Shiv Sena-BJP slate was left in third place. This included the prestigious Mumbai South seat, where Congress' Milind Deora defeated MNS’ Bala Nandgaonkar and Sena's five-time MP Mohan Rawle was relegated to third spot.

Although MNS' Shweta Parulekar getting more than 100,000 votes could not have made any difference to the final result in Mumbai North Central, where Congress’ Priya Dutt won handsomely, the fact that even a relatively weak candidate like her got so many shows the polarisation of Marathi votes in Mumbai behind the MNS.

In urban centers like Mumbai, the BJP-Sena built its campaign on issues like terrorism, urban infrastructure and rising food prices. But these issues seem to have not made an impact on the urban voter.

As state assembly elections are just six months away, the Shiv Sena will have to do a lot of damage control.

The NCP's campaign theme of Maharashtra in heart and a national vision doesn’t seem to have resonated even in its own bastion of Western Maharashtra. In Pawar's own district of Pune, the Shiv Sena managed to retain Shirur by a huge margin; it was a seat Pawar had almost finalised for himself. Ahmadnagar and Kolhapur showed like stories.

Last time, the outcry on issues like farmer suicides, load shedding, etc. was high in Vidarbha, and the Congress-NCP got almost wiped out there. This time, it managed four of the 10 seats. The loan waiver packages of both central and state governments and the Prime Minister's special package for six districts here helped.

Prominent among thw inners were Union civil aviation minister Praful Patel, who won by a big margin from Bhandara-Gondia and fellow Union minister Vilas Muttemwar, who managed to hold on to Nagpur. And, Congress's national general secretary Mukul Wasnik wrested Ramtek from the Shiv Sena.

Says noted political commentator Kumar Ketkar: “MNS’ growing popularity in Mumbai, Thane, Nashik and the Pune region will start an exodus of Sena's rank and file towards MNS. And if the Congress becomes smug and starts thinking it is a pro-Cong wave, they will get a beating in the assembly elections.”