Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday said the outcome of the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana would not have any impact on the opposition INDIA bloc.
The ruling front in Maharashtra has however made the most of INDIA’s predicament. Mr. Pawar’s nephew, the rebel NCP leader and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, and CM Eknath Shinde said the Congress and the INDIA alliance would soon be blaming electronic voting machines (EVMS) for their defeats.
CM Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis said the rout in the ‘Hindi heartland’ of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, showed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “charisma remained intact.”
Analyse results
Speaking in Satara, the 82-year-old Mr. Sharad Pawar said the INDIA bloc leaders would meet on Tuesday at Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge’s New Delhi residence to analyse the poll results.
“I do not think this will have any impact on the INDIA alliance. We will be meeting at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s residence in Delhi. We will speak to those who are aware of the ground reality… I do not know the ground situation in these states as I had not visited them during elections. We will express our views only after the meeting,” said Mr. Pawar.
The NCP patriarch ascribed the Congress’ triumph in Telangana to Rahul Gandhi’s rally in that state, which Mr. Pawar said received an overwhelming response.
“Earlier, it was thought that the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) would retain Telangana. However, after Rahul Gandhi’s rally, which received a huge response, we sensed there would be a change in the state,” Mr. Pawar said.
Blame EVMs
Meanwhile, in Mumbai, Ajit Pawar took swipes at the INDIA bloc, stating that it would blame their losses to “EVM tampering”.
He said PM Modi’s work was being appreciated . “I will not be surprised if the INDIA alliance start blaming EVMs.”
When I was in government [with some of the INDIA bloc parties] in the past, I felt tampering with EVMs was impossible. Just one person cannot tamper with EVMs on such a large scale. You need many people to do it, and when several people get involved, things leak out,” said the Deputy CM, whose rebel NCP faction is in alliance with CM Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and the BJP in Maharashtra.
CM Shinde said people had rejected Rahul Gandhi’s “false promises”. The BJP’s resounding victory in the Hindi belt proved that “earlier it was ‘ghar ghar Modi’ and now it was ‘mann mann mein Modi’” (Modi in everybody’s thoughts).
Mr. Fadnavis said the BJP and its partners would sweep the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Maharashtra as well. He said the PM had succeeded in convincing people that the government was working for progress and development.
“This is an extraordinary result which reflects the people’s trust in PM Modi. The INDIA bloc has been conclusively rejected by the people who have thrown aside Rahul Gandhi’s agenda and false guarantees. The BJP’s vote share has increased by 10% in Chhattisgarh, 14% in Madhya Pradesh, 8% in Rajasthan and even in Telangana, there is a 10% increase. It shows the public’s belief in the BJP,” said Mr. Fadnavis.
He said the BJP had won more than 50% of the seats collectively in these four states which was a clear indication of the victory to follow for the party in 2024.
