A high-pitch campaigning for the Maharashtra Assembly polls ended on Monday evening, as the feuding Shiv Sena leaders Eknath Shinde and Uddhav Thackeray traded charges over the legacy of late Bal Thackeray while the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) president, JP Nadda, defended the prime minister's divisive slogans by saying that the country was safe in Narendra Modi's hand.
Slogans such as Ek-hain-to-safe-hain and batenge-to-katenge and vote-jihad coined by the BJP leaders, the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA)'s criticism about the Modi-Adani link, diversion of projects to Gujarat, threat to the Constitution, stress on Maharashtra asmita, the guarantees by the MVA, and schemes of the BJP-led MahaYuti, the fight between the two Senas over the legacy of late Balasaheb Thackeray and the continued tussle between Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar dominated the four-week-long campaign.
In the last phase of the four-week-long campaign, the contentious issues of agrarian distress, farmers' suicides and lack of remunerative prices for agricultural produce, particularly Soya bean and cotton, figured prominently in the high-voltage campaigning witnessed in Vidarbha region, which sends a maximum of 62 MLAs to the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who led the charge for the BJP, addressed as many as 11 rallies across the state. Prior to the declaration of the schedule for the state Assembly polls, he had four forays into the state to inaugurate various projects and used these occasion to reach out to the people ahead of the Assembly polls.
Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah, who addressed 20-odd rallies, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who tried to polarise voters through his rhetoric, and BJP president JP Nadda were other
BJP's national campaigners. Deputy Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union minister Nitin Gadkari addressed 80 and 50-odd rallies respectively across the state.
From the Opposition MVA side, Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra were on the front of the Congress' campaign. Kharge addressed nine rallies, while Rahul and Priyanka addressed seven and three rallies respectively.
The prominent other campaigners from the MVA side, NCP (SP) President Sharad Pawar, working president Supriya Sule, state chief Jayant Patil, national general secretary Jitendra Awhad; SS (UBT) President Uddhav Thackeray, Aditya Thackeray, Arvind Sawant, Sushma Andhare and state Congress chief Nana Patole
Chief ministers of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah, Telangana, Revanth Reddy, Himachal Pradesh, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, former CMs, deputy chief ministers from different states and senior leaders including P Chidambaram, Ramesh Chennithala, KC Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Randeep S. Surjewala and more, plus INDIA bloc allies from Samajwadi Party, CPI, CPI(M), PWP and AAP joined the campaign in Maharashtra.
As expected, Modi and Yogi were shrill in their campaign, while Congress leaders, particularly Kharge and Rahul, combated the BJP's vicious campaign effectively. Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray was a crowd puller, while veteran leader Sharad Pawar reached out to people effectively.
On the last day of the campaigning, feuding Shiv Sena leaders Eknath Shinde and Uddhav Thackeray trained guns at each other over the legacy of late Balasaheb Thackeray.
Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav, whose party symbol is flaming torch, said: "My party was stolen. The name (Shiv Sena) was stolen. They (Shinde and his men) stole our (bow and arrow) symbol. Now they have stolen the photo of Balasaheb," Uddhav said, as he slammed the Shinde Sena for using the photographs of late Thackeray.
"You know how our government was stolen. It has been two-and-a-half-years, I have been waiting for justice. Justice delayed is justice denied. They stole everything but they could not steal your blessings and love," Uddhav said.
Hitting back at Uddhav, Shinde said that his party was carrying forward the legacy of late Balasaheb. "We are Balasaheb's soldiers. We were in power. Why did we have to revolt even though we were ministers? This will be the first time that ministers in power have come out. The reason for this has been stated many times before. If it was not so, I would not have been able to remain as Chief Minister even for a day," Shinde said.
In a related development, BJP national president JP Nadda hit back at Rahul Gandhi for attacking PM Modi and industrialist Gautam Adani.
Defending Modi and his ek-hai toh-safe-hain, Nadda said: "Modi's ek-hai-toh-safe-hain slogan means that if there is unity in the country, everyone is safe in the country. The country is safe under Modi's leadership. Modi is taking along everyone in the country"
"Rahul Gandhi is alone even at press conferences. Even his MVA colleagues are not with him because he is safe only when he is alone," Nadda said.
Slamming Rahul for displaying pocket-sized version of the Constitution of India at his rallies,
Nadda said: "Now Gandhi roams around carrying the book of Constitution. He has not read the Constitution because Babasaheb Ambedkar has written in the Constitution that reservation cannot be given on the basis of religion."
Meanwhile, more than 9.50 crore voters comprising 5,00,22,739 males, 4,69,96, 279 females, 6,101 transgenders, will exercise their franchise on Wednesday to elect 288 representatives to the Maharashtra Assembly.
