Congress suffers worst ever defeat in Maharashtra. Will he be able to recover? | Mumbai News

MUMBAI: The Assembly election results were disastrous for the Congress, with the party’s lowest ever tally in the state at just 16 seats. This is also the worst performance of the Congress in the political history of Maharashtra. In the 2019 legislative elections, the party won 44 seats, its lowest figure at that time. The party even survived the anti-Indira Gandhi wave after the 1975 Emergency, winning 62 seats in the 1978 assembly elections held less than a year after the Emergency was lifted. The Congress’ disastrous defeat has analysts wondering how the party will survive its biggest-ever setback in the state where it was founded and thrived for decades.

The defeat is even more devastating as it comes just months after the Congress won the Lok Sabha elections with its biggest win among the parties – 13 out of 48 seats – in June this year.

The Grand Old Party, which ruled Maharashtra without alliance support until 1990, is now in complete decline. In this election, it contested 101 seats in an alliance with two other parties – the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), led by Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar respectively. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition was virtually confident of crossing the 145-seat mark required for a simple majority in the 288-seat House of Representatives. Ironically, the worst-case scenario for the Congress was a hung House, a tight contest between the MVA and the ruling Mahayuti coalition, Congress insiders said.

Several senior Congress leaders were also defeated. Among them is Balasaheb Thorat, who lost to Shiv Sena’s Amol Khatal by over 10,000 votes. He lost the Sangamner seat for the first time since 1985 after serving eight terms. State Congress president Nana Patole won from Sakoli by a slim margin of just 200-odd votes. Other senior leaders who were defeated include Prithiviraj Chavan, former chief minister from South Karad; Yashomati Thakur from Teosa; and Manikrao Thakre of Digras.

Senior Congress leader Satej Patil could not hide his shock. “There were so many issues on which people were unhappy with the government, be it the insult to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj after the collapse of his statue (in Sindhudurg), rampant corruption, rising crime rate and many more. Either these issues do not matter to the people or the EVMs are being manipulated,” Patil told HT.

The Congress was even reeling from the defections of many senior party leaders ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in May this year, including Ashok Chavan, Milind Deora, Sanjay Nirupam and Baba Siddique. “But the Congress will find it difficult to recover from this defeat,” another leader said.

Some Congress leaders said the party’s election campaign was not aggressive, while others said party leaders spent more on negotiating the seat-sharing formula with alliance partners than on working on the ground. “Our campaign was not up to par. First of all, it wasn’t as aggressive as it should have been. Second, the issues raised were not specific to states. When Mahayuti was talking about giving more money to the voters, we were wasting time talking about saving the Constitution, which did not get any support as the issue ran its course during the Lok Sabha elections,” said a Congress insider.

“After winning the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra, we became overconfident and spent too much time fighting everyone within the MVA coalition over seat sharing,” said another Congress leader.

The shocking defeat has impacted the morale of the rank and file in the state, which with 288 seats has the second highest number of assembly seats after Uttar Pradesh (403). Looking ahead, the question is: can the Congress recover enough to avoid being wiped out in future elections in big states like Uttar Pradesh?