An RSS-linked Marathi weekly has blamed Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) as one of the reasons behind the BJP’s poor performance in Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha elections. The article in ‘Vivek’, titled ‘Karyakarta khachlelanahi, tar sambhramat’ (worker is not discouraged, but confused), also blamed the lack of communication between the BJP and its workers as another reason behind the poor poll show.
According to the Vivek article, the BJP’s alliance with Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction was “natural” that the voters accepted. However, the sentiment went to the opposite spectrum when Ajit Pawar’s NCP came into the picture.
“Almost every worker, while narrating their displeasure and talking about the reasons behind the failure in the Lok Sabha elections, starts with the alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party. It is clear that the BJP workers did not want to take the NCP along,” the Vivek article read.
The Mahayuti alliance comprising the BJP, Shinde Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP managed to win only 17 of 48 seats – down from 41 seats it won in 2019 – in Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha elections. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) of the INDIA alliance, consisting of Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena, Congress and Sharad Pawar’s NCP, won 30 seats – a striking increase from the five seats the Opposition won in 2019 polls.
