Maha Vikas Aghadi welcomes J'khand outcome

The new anti-BJP coalition in Maharashtra that saw Right-wing Shiv Sena and Congress-NCP alliance coming together, on Monday welcomed the verdict of Jharkhand.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi seems to have shown the way to other states and more such outcomes are not ruled out, according to political observers and leaders.

"Jharkhand results show that people are with non-BJP parties," said NCP President Sharad Pawar, who is the chief architect of MVA. "After Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, people have decided to keep BJP away from power in Jharkhand also," the former union minister said.

The CAA and proposed NRC is creating tension and a divide, he said.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena targetted the duo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister and BJP President Amit Shah.

"Modi-Shah used all their might in Jharkhand but the state slipped from their hands, after Maharashtra, they lost Jharkhand, they need some introspection," said Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Raut, who along with Pawar, was instrumental in stitching the new MVA alliance.

State Congress President and Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat said that because of anti-people policies BJP got defeated in Jharkhand.

"The attempts made by Modi-Shah to win elections by capitalizing on issues like their so-called nationalism, the scrapping of section 370, CAA-NRC have been rejected by the citizens and have also defeated the anti-people policies of the BJP government," he said.

"Ever since Jharkhand came into existence there has always been a BJP led government, the Congress party was never in power there. For the first now, the BJP is going to lose power and the Congress is going to form the government.

In 2014 the BJP won 37 seats and was given the chance to govern and develop Jharkhand for five years. But in the last five years, the BJP has taken the state behind in terms of development," he said.