Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 29: Even though the Prime Minister Narendra Modi mocked at the Congress for its dismal performance in the elections for 28 seats in the legislative councils in four states, the outcome had not been a happy tiding for his National Democratic Alliance (NDA) either having substantially conceded grounds to the opposition INDIA bloc.
While the NDA performance was spectacular in the Congress-ruled Karnataka having swept the MLC polls winning all the four seats in the state, the NDA performance was far from satisfactory in Maharashtra and Bihar and though in Uttar Pradesh the BJP won one seat more than the rival Samajwadi Party, it has rung a warning bell for the ruling party for the state Assembly elections due in less than six months.
For the Congress, the party could win only one seat out of the 12 it contested in four states, including losing all the four seats in Karnataka where it is the ruling party, but its lone victory came from the graduates’ constituency in Maharashtra’s Nagpur, the headquarter of the BJP’s ideologue mentor the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and the home town of the Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and the union minister Nitin Gadkari.
At the halfway stage of the results on Wednesday when the Congress had failed to win any of the 12 seats it contested, Mr Modi had posted on X mocking at his arch rival for not been able to open its accounts despite the fact that the MLC elections were held through ballot papers instead of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) which the Congress allege, were “manipulated” for the benefit of the BJP.
It was the second consecutive win for the congress from Nagpur Division Graduates’ constituency. The Congress candidate Abhijit Govindrao Wanjarri, backed by the MVA, defeated his BJP rival Sudhakar Kohle by a margin of 3,271 votes after a prolonged counting process using ballot papers. The MVA comprises Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP).
Wanjarri told reporters the BJP had made an extensive effort to win the election but failed to produce results. “The way the BJP put its all into these elections; big leaders of the BJP were in Nagpur. However, voters were with us,” Wanjarri said. Maharashtra Congress chief Harshwardhan Sapkal said the BJP nominee was defeated in the RSS headquarters. “The balloon of illusion has burst; hatred has been defeated,” Sapkal said in a post on X.
Overall in Maharashtra, it was a push back for the BJP-led ruling Mahayuti allies – the BJP, Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which could win only two seats with the remaining three going to the opposition MVA. While the results of three constituencies have been formally declared, counting continued in two other seats. The NCP (SP) won the Pune Graduates’ constituency and claimed to be leading in the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad) Graduates’ constituency; both seats were held earlier by the undivided NCP, currently a Mahayuti constituent, before it split in 2023.
In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP won six of the 11 legislative council seats while the Samajwadi Party secured the remaining five. The BJP won the Agra Graduates’ constituency, the Bareilly-Moradabad Teachers’ constituency, the Lucknow Teachers’ constituency and both the Teachers’ and Graduates’ constituencies in Meerut.
The party also won the Gorakhpur-Faizabad Teachers’ seat, where independent candidate Rajiv Yadav has alleged voter manipulation. The Samajwadi Party secured the Allahabad-Jhansi Graduates’ constituency along with the Teachers’ constituencies in Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Mr Modi, and Agra-Aligarh.
In Karnataka, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) swept all four seats in a setback for the Congress government. The BJP won three seats – Shashil G Namoshi won the North-East Teachers’ constituency, SV Sanknur took the West Graduates’ constituency and KM Suresh secured the South-East Graduates’ constituency. Its ally, the Janata Dal (Secular), won the remaining seat with AP Ranganath winning the Bengaluru Teachers’ constituency by 908 votes.
In Bihar, the BJP won two declared seats – Narendra Singh took the Tirhut Teachers’ constituency and NK Yadav won the Kosi Graduates’ seat – while the party was also leading in the Darbhanga Graduates’ constituency where counting is going on. Among other declared results in the state, JD(U) candidate Neeraj Kumar won the Patna Graduates’ seat, RJD candidate Sanjeev Kumar won the Patna Teachers’ seat and Jan Suraaj nominee SP Rai secured the Darbhanga Teachers’ constituency. Independent candidates Rahul Raj and Banshidhar Brijwasi won the Saran Teachers’ and Tirhut Graduates’ constituencies, respectively.
The Maharashtra minister Chhagan Bhujbal on Thursday said the MLC election results were a warning sign for the ruling coalition in the state after the Opposition MVA won three of the five seats. “The results are a matter of serious concern for the Mahayuti government and our own party. We have to analyse why such voters are moving away from us,” he said.
The BJP’s central leadership has taken note of the results and will seek an explanation from state president Ravindra Chavan to investigate whether the loss was driven by Mahayuti’s disputes or internal party factionalism.
A crucial meeting of three key leaders – Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and Deputy Chief Ministers Eknath Shinde and Sunetra Pawar – is set to take place soon amid mounting friction within the ruling alliance, sources said. They said the talks will focus on the internal turmoil and the blame game that has erupted following the electoral setback, with deliberations expected on resolving growing disputes and implementing damage control measures.
Within the coalition, the BJP has blamed the Shiv Sena for the loss of three MLC seats in Maharashtra, alleging a failure to adhere to “alliance dharma.” In the elections for the Teachers’ and Graduates’ constituencies, the Shiv Sena did not provide the expected support in Pune and Nagpur; in Pune, by extending support to Sachin Sanap at the last minute, the party undermined the unity of the Mahayuti, while the votes secured by the Shiv Sena in the Graduates’ constituency did not transfer to the BJP.
BJP MLA Nitesh Rane faulted what he called a lack of coordination, while also alleging sabotage from within. “United, we are safe… If the Mahayuti had fought together, the election outcome would have been different. The Mahayuti demonstrated its strength in the legislative assembly; our alliance partners should take note of this,” he said. “We must investigate whether there is any Uddhav-sympathiser or someone close to Matoshree (the Thackeray home) operating from within our Mahayuti alliance,” he added.
Defending the BJP’s performance, Rane dismissed the Congress win as a fluke that happened due to independent candidate Karale Guruji. Attacking the Shiv Sena (UBT) and its MP Sanjay Raut, Rane said the Opposition leader should tell the public how many of the three candidates fielded by the Shiv Sena (UBT) had won and how many votes they received. “In this election, the UBT hid behind the Congress.”
Raut launched a counterattack against the remarks made by the ruling party leaders, claiming the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and Mahayuti had been wiped out in key strongholds because voting was conducted with ballot papers. “Self-introspection is needed in politics. With the MLC election, BJP and Mahayuti have to introspect. They have lost Nagpur, Pune and everything. They don’t have anything left. The elections happened on ballot papers and they lost everything,” he said.