After convincingly returning to power in Haryana, the BJP is hoping it will have a knock-on effect in Maharashtra, where the MVA has looked upbeat since winning 30 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats four months ago. While the Congress will no longer head to the election on a strong footing, the BJP, amid complicated seat-sharing negotiations, will get a second wind. Early on Tuesday when trends in Haryana indicated BJP was returning to power, Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis said, “It reaffirms people’s unwavering faith in the leadership of PM Narendra Modi. Holding free and fair elections in J&K after Article 370 was scrapped shows that Indian democracy is strong.” “The victory spree will continue after Haryana. We will emerge with a bigger victory in Maharashtra,” said state BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule. A BJP insider said the MVA would have felt emboldened had the Congress won Haryana. “They would have come up with a sharper anti-Modi and Shah narrative to create a perception of weaker Central and state governments. The INDIA bloc would have become more aggressive. With a victory against all odds, the BJP has emerged stronger. A mantra of ‘yes, we can do it, we will do it’ will work magic in galvanising those in the organisation who had been despondent since the parliamentary poll results.” Another BJP leader in the state said, “. Despite anti-incumbency, the Congress could not defeat the BJP. This shows how effort went into course correction.” Given that Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray was the CM for half of the five-year tenure of the government, BJP leaders do not expect anti-incumbency to be as big an issue in the state elections as in Haryana. Unlike Haryana where the elections were mostly a direct fight between the Congress and the BJP, Maharashtra is a more complicated affair, with a contest between the two alliances comprising six parties. Inside both coalitions, there is a power tussle over seat-sharing between the parties. Given that all the parties have to accommodate their leaders and allies, a larger number of poll ticket aspirants will miss out and how alliances deal with the subsequent churn may end up determining how they fare in the elections. The BJP is looking to avoid the protracted negotiations for the Lok Sabha elections that hampered its electoral efforts. The party, it is learnt, has decided that each party will retain their sitting constituencies, which means 105 seats at least for it, 40 for the Shiv Sena, and 41 for the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). This leaves 102 of the 288 total seats still undecided. While the NCP is said to be pushing for 85-90 seats, the BJP is said to be pushing for at least 155 to 160 seats as anything less may cause unrest within its state unit. The Sena is trying to assert itself in Mumbai, Thane, and Konkan, demanding 36 and 24 constituencies respectively in the first two regions. Union Home Minister Amit Shah has visited the state twice in as many months to resolve these problems. In his address to party workers in Mumbai last week, Shah tried to raise their morale and asked those still feeling defeatist to snap out of it. “Why are you defensive? You must bear in mind the BJP under PM Modi's leadership has come to power for the third consecutive time. It is a huge achievement. Workers should focus only on getting the maximum number of people to vote. That's all. It doesn't matter whom they vote. Just reach out to the masses and drive them to cast their votes,” he said. BJP has also repeatedly told party workers to guard against complacency. “You have to dedicate 24x7 for the next two months,” he said last month. The party’s top leadership has sought help of all Sangh Parivar outfits for polls.
