Mumbai: Although enthusiastic Yuva Sena cadres may have put posters in Worli congratulating their chief Aditya Thackeray for his victory and proclaiming him to be the next chief minister, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah has already made it amply clear that Devendra Fadnavis will be retained as the next chief minister. Notwithstanding the recommencement of the saber rattling from the Shiv Sena over power sharing, Shah on Friday did make a formal call to Sena president Uddhav Thackeray to congratulate him on Sena’s performance in the just concluded assembly elections.
Sources in the saffron alliance disclosed that the formal talks on government formation and portfolio sharing will commence from October 29. The assembly election process for the 14th Maharashtra Legislative Assembly will end on October 27 and the formal gazette notification for its due constitution is expected to be issued soon after the Diwali festivities are over. The formal swearing-in ceremony of the new Chief Minister is likely to take place around October 31. It may be recalled that in 2014, Fadnavis had taken oath as the chief minister on the same day.
According to sources in the state legislature secretariat a special three day session is being convened from November 4 to facilitate the newly elected 288 Members of the Legislative Assembly to take their oath of membership and the due constitution of the new lower house. The term of the existing 13th Legislative Assembly is to expire on November 9, 2019. The first winter session of the state legislature is expected to held at Nagpur from December 9, 2019, sources added.
Meanwhile, the BJP has begun taking steps on a war footing and has contacted the seven to eight of its rebels who had contested against its official candidates and won. Sources in the BJP disclosed to The News21 that all the BJP rebels have agreed to support the government and would be attending the party legislators meeting which will be convened soon.
There are 13 Independents who have been elected this time around, six more than in 2014 elections. Besides this there are 9 smaller political parties like – BVA 3, PWP-I 1, MIM 2, CPI-M 1, MNS 1, Samajwadi Party 1, RSP 1, Prahar Janashakti Party (PJP) 1 and Swabhimani Paksha 1, who alone account for 28 members. This time the Prakash Ambedkar led BBM or its new incarnation the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) this time around drew a blank, while the PWP-I saw its tally come down by two from the 3 seats it had won in 2014.
While the official final tally of the recognized national and state level political parties is as follows: BJP 105, Sena 56, Congress 44 and NCP 54. The BJP tally has come down by 17 from 122 it won in 2014.
Sources in the BJP further confirmed that MLA Bachu Kadu’s PJP is most certain to support the BJP-Sena Mahayuti government. The BJP will make all out efforts to win over the remaining five to six Independents and the lone MLA of the Krantikari Shetkari Party (KSP) who has been elected from Nevasa assembly constituency in Ahmednagar district. It must be noted here that MLAs who are elected as Independents do not attract any party whip and can declare their association with a political party or any grouping formed in the house.
It is interesting to note here that 7,42,134 voters exercised the None Of The Above (NOTA) option and two Congress legislators Dhiraj Deshmukh from Latur Rural and Vishwajeet Kadam from Palus-Kadegaon assembly trounced their nearest NOTA rival by a margin of more than 1 lakh votes. In Latur Rural a staggering 27,500 votes were cast as NOTA, while in Palus-Kadegaon also 20,631 voters cast NOTA votes. Elsewhere in Akkalkuwa assembly constituency, 4,857 NOTA votes helped sitting Congress MLA K C Padavi trounce his nearest Sena rival A F Padavi by a margin of 2,096 votes.
Interestingly enough although Yuva Sena president Aditya Thackeray who polled 89,248 votes won the Worli assembly seat by a margin of 67,427 votes. What is interesting to note here is that 6,305 votes were cast as NOTA votes. Although it was the idea of poll strategist and JD-S leader from Bihar, Prashant Kishor to field Aditya Thackeray in the assembly elections, a section in the Sena has begun accusing him of actually bringing down the Sena tally of 63 in 2014 to 56 seats now. A section of the Sena has accused Kishor of not understanding the local Maharashtra politics which resulted in the partys electoral fortunes taking a further nose dive.
At least 37 candidates have won by a margin of less than 5,000 votes. The Sena-BJP have more or less retained the stronghold in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). The issue of tree felling for Metro 3 car shed at Aarey Milk Colony did not seem to have affected the saffron alliance as they retained their respective seats in North-West and North-Eastern suburbs of Mumbai. The MIM which snapped its poll pact with VBA managed to win two seats, but lost it two sitting seats in Bhyculla and Aurangabad city. The PWP-I returned its worst performance till today, it saw its tally come down from 3 seats in 2014 to just 1 seat now.
