Mumbai: The Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance suffered a rout in Maharashtra, winning just five of the state’s 48 seats, but detailed results show it could have gained up to seven more seats where Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) spoiled its prospects.
This election, the NCP won four Lok Sabha seats — Baramati, Raigad, Shirur and Satara — just as many as it had in 2014, while the Congress managed to win just Chandrapur, reducing its tally from two seats last election to one now.
However, data from the Election Commission shows the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) could have had a shot at winning two more seats in Vidarbha (Buldhana and Gadchiroli-Chimur), three in western Maharashtra (Solapur, Hathkanangale and Sangli), and two in Marathwada.
Western Maharashtra and Marathwada, which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shiv Sena dominated along with the rest of the state this election, were considered to be Congress-NCP’s strongholds.
VBA experiment
The VBA, which took a significant amount of votes in the seven constituencies, registered victory in one seat — Marathwada’s Aurangabad where Imtiaz Jaleel from ally All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) won against senior Shiv Sena leader Chandrakant Khaire.
The VBA was an experiment put together by Ambedkar to bring different marginalised sections of the society and the parties who represent them together. As an umbrella alliance, it fielded candidates in all 48 of Maharashtra’s constituencies.
Even as Congress and NCP leaders made attempts to get the VBA to join the opposition alliance, Ambedkar stood his ground and contested separately.
Opposition leaders feared that the VBA will end up cutting into their vote share and helping the BJP-Shiv Sena as a result.
“There was no wave. Traders, the unemployed, the farmers, were expressing their discontent on the ground, but yet the BJP-Shiv Sena got this kind of a result. We have to study where we went wrong, but the VBA did do us damage in a bunch of seats,” said Vijay Wadettiwar, a Congress MLA from the Chandrapur district and a senior party leader.
“One of the main reasons the Congress lost the safe seat of Nanded is also due to the VBA,” Wadettiwar added.
Nanded was Maharashtra Congress president Ashok Chavan’s constituency, which the party had managed to guard in the Modi wave of 2014.
Seats where VBA damaged opposition’s prospects
Of the most significant constituencies that the opposition lost because of VBA’s impact, Nanded in the Marathwada region was one. Former CM Chavan lost this bastion by a margin of 40,148 votes.
Chavan polled 4,42,138 votes, while the VBA took away 1,65,341 votes. Together with the VBA votes, the Congress could have had 6,07,479 votes and defeated BJP’s Pratap Chikhalikar who scored 4,82,148 votes.
Similarly, the NCP may have comfortably won Parbhani if the VBA had not been a rival force. NCP’s Rajesh Vitekar won 4,96,372 votes, while the VBA made a dent of 1,49,834 votes, together amounting to 6,46,206 votes. The Shiv Sena won this seat with 5,38,214 votes.
In western Maharashtra, the VBA, perhaps, dealt the opposition its biggest blow in Solapur where former Congress CM Sushilkumar Shinde, who got who got 3,65,274 votes, lost to Jai Siddheshwar Shivacharya, a spiritual leader fielded by the BJP. Together with VBA’s 1,69,523 votes here, Shinde would have been able to just about snatch this constituency from the BJP. The BJP candidate won with 5,23,352 votes — VBA and Congress’ combined votes would have amounted to 5,34,797 votes.
Harm to UPA allies too
Sangli was another example of a bastion, being former Congress CM Vasantdada Patil’s constituency, falling to the BJP.
Patil’s grandson, Vishal Patil, contested from the constituency on ally Swabhimani Shetkari Paksha’s (SSP) symbol and got 3,42,016 votes, while the VBA here got 2,97,349 votes. Together with the VBA votes, Vishal would have been able to triumph over BJP’s sitting MP Sanjaykaka Patil with 6,39,365 votes against the latter’s 5,03,615 votes.
The VBA caused damage to the SSP at Hathkanangale too with the incumbent Raju Shetty, who had aligned with the National Democratic Alliance in 2014. He lost to Shiv Sena’s Dhairyasheel Mane this time despite drawing 4,87,276 votes. Here, the VBA took away 1,23,151 votes, which if it had gone to the opposition, the UPA would have won with 6,10,427 votes as against the Shiv Sena’s 5,82,776.
It was a similar scenario in Vidarbha’s Buldhana and Gadchiroli-Chimur constituencies, which the NCP and the Congress, respectively, lost.
At Buldhana, the NCP and VBA’s votes put together were 5,60,599 votes, adequate to win over Shiv Sena’s Prataprao Jadhav, who won with 5,20,538 votes. At Gadchiroli Chimur, the Congress and VBA’s 5,51,722 votes together would have beaten the BJP’s 5,17,722 votes.
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