AIMIM : BJP’s Friend and Congress’ Foe in Maharashtra

The 2019 Maharashtra Assembly Election again gave a fractured mandate with none of the party attaining the Magical figure of 145 seats. BJP with 105 Assembly seats became the single largest party in the state. Its pre-poll ally Shiv Sena with 58 seats became the number two in the state. However, after the result the two saffron allies are yet to come together and form the government.

Maharashtra Assembly Election result gave a new life Sharad Pawar’s NCP and Congress in the state. The battle that was considered to be completely one sided turned out to be an interesting one with NCP winning 52 seats, 11 seats more than what it had won in 2014 Assembly election. Congress on other hand won 45 seats and managed to improve its 2014 tally of 41 seats. However, interesting was the rise of Assaduddin Owaisis’s AIMIM in the state. Though the party lost one of its oldest seat of By-Culla, yet it managed to win two seats in the state. Added to it AIMIM proved to be fatal for Congress-NCP in the State. The vote share of AIMIM dented chances of  Congress-NCP alliance in many seats.

Here we analyze how AIMIM dented the winning chance of Congress-NCP alliance in Maharastra:

In Sangola seat Shiv Sena’s Adv. Shahajibabu Rajaram Patil polled 99464 votes while the PWPI candidate, who had contested election in an alliance with Congress in the state polled 98696 votes. PWPI lost the election by a narrow margin of 768 votes. In the same seat AIMIM candidate polled 979 votes.

One of the most decisive electoral battle was fought in Chandivali seat. Here Shiv Sena’s Dilip Lande won over Mohammed Arif Khan of Congress by just 409 votes. AIMIM candidate Mohd. Imran Quresi polled over 1100 votes.

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In Nagpur Central seat AIMIM candidate got 8565 votes, while BJP’s Vikas Shankarrao Kumbhare won the seat by polling 75692 votes. Congress came second with 4000 votes less than  BJP’s Kumbhare.

It was not only AIMIM, even Prakash Ambedkar’s VBA played a joint role to make sure BJP-Sena candidate comes out victorious in couple of seat. In Kamthi assembly seat both VBA and AIMIM together polled 18946 votes. BJP won the seat by a margin of 11000 votes.

Pune turned out to be an eye opener for BJP, Pune district sends 22 MLA’s to 288 members Maharashtra Assembly. Here battle was solely between BJP and NCP. BJP won 10 seats while NCP managed 9 assembly seats. However in one of the seats of Pune, that is Pune Cantt, AIMIM candidate polled 6138 votes. BJP won this seat by a margin of 5012 votes against Congress candidate who managed to get around 47148 votes.

Apart from these seats, AIMIM proved to be a friend of BJP-Sena alliance in couple of seats. Be it the assembly seat of Nanded North or be it Kurla constituency, Owaisis’s AIMIM took away chances of winning of NCP-Congress candidates by narrow margin.

Outcome

Results of Maharashtra Assembly election may not have been “Acche Din” for BJP in state but for Congress-NCP, election result proved to be blessing in disguise. After Lok Sabha debacle none might have expected the alliance to cross even 50 seats in the state. However, after the result, both the parties had something to cheer for. Who will form the next government in Maharashtra is still a big question, but Congress-NCP was successful to stop BJP from forming government on its own in state.

Analysis by Nishant Verma @varnishant