New Delhi: Maha Vikas Aghadi was likely to win over 150 out of 288 Assembly seats in Maharashtra and the Congress could emerge as the single largest party, an internal survey of the grand old party has shown.
The survey done ahead of the last leg of campaigning shows that ‘subjugation of local interest’ and ‘shift of big investment to Gujarat’ by the BJP-led central government besides alleged corruption by the state government were the factors going against the ruling coalition Mahayuti.
Another factor that drove the voters towards the opposition MVA was the ‘stabbing in the back’ of two big regional leaders Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackery allegedly by the BJP had contributed to the anti-Mahayuti sentiment.
“I can confidently say that a tally of 150 plus looks very doable for the MVA. Within the alliance, Congress can emerge as the single largest party but much would depend on how our allies also perform. From the feedback that I have, 50 or 60 seats out of the 102 it is contesting for the Congress, 50 out of 95 the Shiv Sena UBT is contesting and 50 out of 85 the NCP-SP is contesting, is a reasonable score. Besides, we would fetch 3 or 4 seats out of the seven our allies are contesting,” All India Congress Committee (AICC) observer for Maharashtra TS Singh Deo told ETV Bharat.
According to Singh Deo, former deputy chief minister of Chhattisgarh, “There was a strong undercurrent among the voters that the interests of Maharashtra were overlooked by the BJP-led Centre which broke the two strong regional parties Shiv Sena and NCP to gain power through illegal means. Plus, they also acknowledge the fact that over the past two years, Maharashtra lost a lot of big investment which could have created jobs for the locals to neighbouring Gujarat.”
Singh Deo who has been travelling across major parts of the western state said he noticed cooperation among local MVA workers was also taking place besides the occasional coming together of top leaders.
“The cooperation among the local alliance workers is also taking place besides the congregation of top leaders at select rallies. Recently, I saw a Congress candidate’s election office operating from the local NCP-SP office in the Pune region. Over the next few days Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy is likely to campaign for Shiv Sena UBT leader Aditya Thackeray in Worli seat in Mumbai where he is pitted against Shiv Sena Shinde’s Milind Deora, who is ex-Congress,” said Singh Deo.
The Congress veteran said that while the MVA campaign had been positive, the Mahayuti leaders were also trying to play up the Maharashtra card to gain traction.
“The MVA is putting up a good fight on the ground against the Mahayuti which has to deal with the sentiment among the voters that Maharashtra’s pride was compromised by the saffron party and the breakaway groups like Shiv Sena Shinde and NCP-AP were on the BJP side. The original Shiv Sena and NCP were built by stalwarts like Bala Saheb Thackeray and Sharad Pawar basically to promote the Maharashtra pride but they were back-stabbed by their own leaders,” Singh Deo added.
The 288-member Maharashtra Assembly elections are slated for November 20, and the counting will be on November 23.
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