Mumbai, Nov 18 After nearly a month, the cacophony, heat and dust of the poll campaign ended for the November 20 Maharashtra Assembly elections with a choice of two alliances – ruling MahaYuti and opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi – vying to be the favourites of the voters, here on Monday.
The MahaYuti comprises Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party-Nationalist Congress Party and the MVA is made of Congress-Shiv Sena (UBT)-Nationalist Congress Party (SP); and both sides have a motley of their smaller partner-parties.
The electioneering saw bigwigs from the MVA swooping on the state, led by Congress President and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, his sister Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra, and several state Chief Ministers trooping here.
Others were NCP (SP) President Sharad Pawar, Working President Supriya Sule, state chief Jayant Patil, National GS Jitendra Awhad; SS (UBT) President Uddhav Thackeray, Aditya Thackeray, Arvind Sawant, Sushma Andhare, state Congress chief Nana F. Patole and many more from all the parties.
The overall campaigning witnessed was no-holds-barred – with parties screaming hoarse with promises on the freebies, sops, jobs, loan waivers, monetary assistance, showing dreams of bright days ahead, releasing mouth-watering Manifestos, combined or separate, and trying to overdo the offerings from the ruling MahaYuti side.
There were verbal duels galore – direct or snide personal attacks, questioning each other’s political credentials, some lower-lung leaders from the ruling dispensation resorted to language ranging from the crass to unprintable, that left even the male crowds red-faced, one woman and the all-round tamasha continued in full swing.
The top leaders also doled out assurances on possible key candidates who could be rewarded with better prospects to ensure their election, some tugging at the voters’ emotions, vowing to fulfil promises in the name of mothers-sisters-daughters, expressed angst over the collapse of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj statue in Sindhudurg (August 26) to prick the MahaYuti, dares and threats, et al.
Coming six months after the Lok Sabha elections, the MVA partners appeared a tad more confident in tackling the political onslaught of the ruling alliance, but were somewhat stumped when the latter whipped out new slogans like ‘batenge to katenge’, ‘ek hain to safe hain’ and ‘vote-jihad’.
After the initial stupor, the MVA hit back with full vigour accusing the rulers of brazen attempts to polarise the voters, fomenting caste-communal tussles, and dividing the society, forcing the ruling side to soften its tempo a bit, as a rage built up on the social media.
According to MVA leaders, the campaign calendar had around eight major rallies by Kharge, seven by Rahul Gandhi, four including a road show by Priyanka Gandhi, Thackeray and Sharad Pawar newly two dozen each, besides many more meetings by Sule, Patole, Patil, Awhad, Andhare and more, zipping around the state in small aircraft or helicopters.
There were guest appearances by out-state Congress leaders like Chief Minister of Karnataka (Siddaramaiah), Telangana (Revanth Reddy), Himachal Pradesh (Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu), former chief ministers, deputy chief ministers from different states, plus top leaders including Ramesh Chennithala, K. C. Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Randeep S. Surjewala and more, plus INDIA Bloc allies from Samajwadi Party, CPI, CPI-M, PWP, AAP, and others filling up the gaps in the campaign.
As per the Election Commission of India data, a little over 9.50 crore voters comprising 5,00,22,739 males, 4,69,96, 279 females, 6,101 transgenders, shall exercise their franchise on Wednesday.
These include 6,41,425 persons with disabilities, 116,170 service voters, 22,22,704 young or first-time voters, a staggering 47,389 centenarians across the state, 12,40,919 aged above 85, plus others in the upper age groups.
The biggest chunk of voters is the ‘youth’ (218,15,278 - aged 30-40), besides 207,30,598 (aged 40-50), 1,88,45,005 (aged 20-30), 1,56,10,794 (50-60), who will cast their votes in 100,186 polling centres in the state, comprising 57,582 (rural) and 42,604 (urban).
The Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) – which organised a major, multi-pronged drive to ensure voter turnout in different ways like awareness camps, cycle rallies, walkathons, training camps, etc., said it is fully prepared for the state ‘festival of democracy’ this time also along with tight security deployed all over to ensure free and fair elections.
(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: qnajmi@gmail.com)
--IANS
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