MUMBAI: Poor turnout of voters led to a lower percentage of between 45 to 50 percent voting for the 288 seats of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly polls which concluded on Tuesday evening, with both the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance and the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) saffron alliance claiming to get a clear majority to form the next government in the state.
But it is Raj Thackeray, the president of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and estranged nephew of Sena chief Bal Thackeray, who is having the last laugh.
An exit poll conducted by Star News-Neilson shortly after the polls closed on Tuesday evening presented a sad picture to both the Congress-NCP and Shiv Sena-BJP combine by pointing that the picture was not rosy and that either of the combine cannot form a government without the support of Raj.
Giving the break up of the seats the political parties would get, the exit polls said that the Congress would get 73, NCP 52, Shiv Sena 63, BJP 56, MNS 21, Third Front 5, independents and rebels 21.
Thus the Congress-NCP alliance would get a total of 125 seats, while the Sena-BJP alliance would reach the finally tally of 119 seats, but none of them would be able to reach the magic figure of 145 plus without the help of Raj’s MNS party with 18 seats or with the support of independents or rebel candidates.
Political analysts said that the Congress-NCP has an edge over the saffron alliance due to its long experience in forming government in such given circumstances and that the Congress-NCP alliance would form a government.
A senior Congress leader said that Sharad Pawar, the NCP supremo would play a key role and he would succeed in getting the support of the Independents and rival candidates. However, there is no doubt that the Congress-NCP alliance would form the government, yet it cannot be ruled out that it would be very hard to run the government with support from Independents and rebel candidates, the leader said.
