The ruling BJP-Shiv Sena is upbeat about the polling percentage of 61.1 per cent in the Maharashtra Assembly Election. It hopes to come to power easily in Maharashtra and reduce the bench strength of the Opposition.
Leaders of the MahaYuti ruling coalition, including Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, are positive that they would get much ahead of the projected 220-plus figure in the 288-seat Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. On the other hand, BJP's principal Opposition partner Shiv Sena expects to cross 100 seats.
Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray's son Aaditya is a candidate from Worli and a section of party leaders are projecting him as the next chief minister.
In the outgoing 13th Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, the BJP had a strength of 122 and Shiv Sena 63.
Fadnavis and state BJP president Chandrakant Patil had been claiming that the ruling side would cross 220. Congress had a strength of 42 and Sharad Pawar-led NCP 41 in the outgoing House, if one does not take into account the more than a dozen sitting MLAs switching over to the ruling side.
The Congress-NCP MahaAghadi formation is banking on the presence of 40-plus formidable rebels in the arena that may tilt the scales.
"The government had failed on multiple fronts, people will reject it," said state NCP president Jayant Patil after BJP leaders' claim of 220-plus. All the exit polls have predicted a clean sweep for BJP-Sena.
Meanwhile, NCP Rajya Sabha member and senior lawyer Majeed Memon questioned as to why Congress president Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had not campaigned in Maharashtra. NCP chief spokesman Nawab Malik said that was not the line of the party.
The term of the 13th Maharashtra Legislative Assembly ends on November 9 and the first meeting of the new House would be on November 10.
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