Maha, Jharkhand outcome

The outcome of the Maharashtra and Jharkhand election has been both along expected lines and at the same time shocking. In Maharashtra, the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance has pulled off a stunning victory that far overshot the predictions. The BJP itself has won the largest number of seats, so it is no longer entirely dependent on the allies to form the government but whom it will still take along.

As for the other parties, the election has thrown up an interesting outcome: the breakaway factions of Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have bagged several times more seats than the parent parties. So, the rebels like Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar now effectively take over as the authentic leaders of Shiv Sena and the NCP while Udhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar now head the rumps of these organizations. Going forward, Thackeray and senior Pawar are likely to become irrelevant to Maharashtra politics and, in turn, to national politics.

Congress, on the other hand, has been decimated in the state. The second successive loss for the party after Haryana and abysmally poor performance in J&K have left the party reeling. It is difficult to explain as to what happened in just four months after the general elections, in which the party had staged a comeback of sorts. It is almost as if the Congress gets its act together in spasms and then goes back into the complacent mode.

In general elections, it was Maharashtra that along with Uttar Pradesh, had played a crucial role in stopping the BJP juggernaut short of an absolute majority. Now Maharashtra has given the saffron party most of the seats in the Assembly polls. What it shows is that the BJP has been quick to learn its lessons and tailor its election strategy to the aspirations of the voters. The BJP is also a 24x7 party. It's already vaunted election machinery keeps working while other parties are fast asleep. More so, the Congress whose top leaders take a political sabbatical after every election.  And if the Rahul Gandhi-led party and the larger opposition fail to dissect what went wrong in Maharashtra and then act on it, it bodes ill for their future.