The Bharatiya Janata Party alone cannot win the Maharashtra Assembly election but will emerge as the single-largest party, said state Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday.
The state’s ruling Mahayuti coalition has an edge in the election and “will be able to get a comfortable majority to form the government”, Fadnavis claimed at an event organised by NDTV Marathi.
The Mahayuti alliance comprises the BJP, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction and the Nationalist Congress Party group led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.
When asked about the compromises made by the BJP while sharing seats with its allies, and the possibility of disgruntled party loyalists triggering rebellions, Fadnavis said that “one has to be practical about the ground reality in politics” and take decisions accordingly.
“Today, the ground reality is that only as the three parties combined will we win,” he said.
“BJP alone cannot win the state but it is also true that we have the most seats and the highest voting percentage,” said Fadnavis. “After the elections, the BJP will emerge as the single largest party in the state. The consolidation of votes of all the three parties can only make us victorious.”
He added: “One [party] cannot say that you want others’ votes but refuse to compromise on seat sharing”.
The polling for the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly will take place in a single phase on November 20. The counting of votes will take place on November 23, alongside that of the Jharkhand elections.
The Mahayuti alliance has so far named 235 candidates.
On Sunday, the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) and the Congress released additional candidate lists. This took the number of candidates announced by the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance so far to 259.
Tuesday is the last day to file nominations for the polls.
The Opposition alliance consists of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction, the Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led group of the Nationalist Congress Party.
In the 2019 Maharashtra polls, the BJP won 105 seats in the Assembly. The undivided Shiv Sena, its ally at the time, won 56 seats. The majority mark is 145.
The undivided Nationalist Congress Party won 54 seats, while its ally, the Congress, won 44 seats.
After the poll results, the undivided Shiv Sena quit its alliance with the BJP and formed the state government along with a united Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi government collapsed in June 2022 when a group of Shiv Sena MLAs led by Shinde rebelled and formed a government with the BJP. This split the Shiv Sena into two factions, with one led by Thackeray and the other by Shinde who became the chief minister.
In the Lok Sabha elections this year, the first major polls in the state since these developments, the Maha Vikas Aghadi won 30 of the 48 seats in the state. The remaining 18 seats were won by the ruling Mahayuti alliance.
The two alliances each secured a 43% vote share in the general election.
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