Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said here on Friday that the ruling Congress-NCP would contest the State Assembly polls on the basis of its achievements during the last 15 years and on the “continuing need” for keeping the “communal” Shiv Sena-BJP alliance away from power in the State.
Talking to mediapersons, Chavan expressed confidence of the Congress-NCP alliance returning to power the state for the fourth consecutive term. “like we have done in the past, we (Congress and NCP) will contest the elections together in an effort to keep the communal parties away from power. The people in the state have stood by us and not entertained the communal Sena-BJP alliance during the last 15 years. We will go to people with our achievements during the last three terms and misrule of the Sena-BJP government for four and a half years between 1995 and 1999 .. We are confident that we will return to power in the state for the fourth consecutive term,” the chief minister said.
Chavan said that the Congress had been making preparations for the Assembly for quite some time. “Senior leaders have been assigned specific tasks during the polls. We are going to polls under a collective leadership,” he said.
The chief minister said that the seat-sharing negotiations with the NCP were progressing satisfactorily and would be completed in the next few days. “Our negotiations with the NCP leaders have reached a certain stage. We will soon be taking the negotiations to a final stage,” he said.
Chavan said the Congress-NCP Government had successfully tackled several challenges. “We have ensured Maharashtra retains its top position in various fields like infrastructure, health, education, horticulture and industrial development. But, we have to take the state forward further on several fields. That’s why we are seeking a fresh mandate from the people,” he said.
Queried if he would contest the Assembly polls, Chavan – who is currently a member of State legislative Council – said that he had conveyed his views to the Congress’ central leadership which would take a final decision in his case in the nex few days.
“Now that the election schedule has been announced, the BJP would not be pushing us as much as it did in recent months. We are confident of bringing the BJP leaders around by offering them half a dozen to ten seats more than the seats they had contested in the past. Plus, we will allot equal number seats to other alliance partners in the Maha-Yuti from our respective quotas,” a senior Sena leader said.
It is not certain yet as to how many seats that the Raj Thackeray-led MNS, which will be going to the polls on its own strength, will contest. In the 2009 Assembly polls, the Raj Thackeray-led MNS had contested as many as 142 out of 288 seats in the state and won 13 seats. The then fledgling party had polled as many 5.71 per cent (25,85,597 votes) of the total votes polled. In the seats it had contested, the MNS had polled 11.88 per cent votes.
In the lok Sabha polls held earlier in 2009, though the MNS did not win any of the 11 seats it had contested in the 2009 lS polls, its candidates had polled more than one lakh votes in as many as nine constituencies – a development that had contributed in a big way to the Sena-BJP alliance's debacle in the state.
However, in the 2014 lok Sabha polls, the MNS put up a miserable performance, Not only did all its 10 candidates lose their deposits, the MNS vote share was reduced from 4.6 per cent in the 2009 lok Sabha polls to just 1.5 per cent, even lower than Aam Aadmi Party’s 2.2 per cent, Bahujan Samaj Party’s 2.6 per cent, and much smaller Swabhimani Paksha’s 2.3 per cent.
Given that there will be also many other parties like BSP, Samajwadi Party. PWP and left parties in fray, there will be triangular and quadrangular contests in most of the 288 constituencies in the state.