The most aggressive and bitterest-ever campaign for the October 15 Maharashtra Assembly polls — an electioneering that saw leaders belonging to five major contesting parties indulge in allegations and counter-allegations, blame games of all kind and even personal vilification of an objectionable kind — ended on Monday evening.
Barring poll-related happenings like seizure of cash and liquor, the campaign was by and large peaceful. leading the campaign for the BJP, Prime Minister criss-crossed the State and addressed as many as 27 public rallies in various parts of the State in a span of nine days.
Topping the list of leaders belonging to different political parties holding maximum number of rallies, BJP’s senior leader and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari addressed as many as 104 rallies, followed by Vinod Tawde (68), Devendra Fadnavis (40), Pankaja Munde (35), Eknath Khadse (34) and Amit Shah (17).
On the Congress’ side, its State party president Manikrao Thakre addressed as many as 70 rallies, followed by former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan (4), Rahul Gandhi (6) and Sonia Gandhi (4)
With 80 rallies to his credit, former deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar topped the list of the NCP campaigners. The break-up of rallies addressed by other NCP leaders was as follows: Sharad Pawar-55, Sunil Tatkare, Chhagan Bhujbal and Supriya Sule – 40 each.
Spear-heading the campaign for his party, Sena president Uddhav Thackeray addressed as many as 50 election rallies across the State, while his son and youth Sena chief Aditya held as many as 35 meetings.
Though MNS chief Raj Thackeray addressed a sizeable number of public rallies, information about the exact number of election rallies addressed by him was not available.
At their campaign rallies, leaders belonging all the non-erstwhile Democratic Front (DF) parties came down heavily on the Congress-NCP alliance Government for the various scams it was involved in and its failure to deliver goods in its 15 year-long rule in the State.
Modi was both critical and bitter in his campaign against the DF, particularly the NCP and its leaders Sharad Pawar and his nephew Ajit Pawar. Congress’ Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi attacked the Modi Government for its failure to keep its promises made during the 2014 lok Sabha polls and its lack of initiative to check the recurring ceasefire violations by the Pakistani troops from across the lOC and occupation of ladakh by the Chinese troops. They ridiculed Modi’s claim of taking Maharashtra ahead of Gujarat in terms of development.
All the non-BJP parties, including the Shiv Sena, went hammers and tongs at the BJP leaders for their efforts to invoke Maratha warrior Chhatrapati Shivaji’s name to seek votes. Modi refrained from criticising the Shiv Sena out of what he called his “respect” for late party chief Bal Thackeray.
The Shiv Sena, in its official mouth-piece “Saamana” retaliated, saying: “Where was Modi’s respect for late Thackeray when the saffron alliance split over the mere issue of sharing of seats for the Assembly pollsIJ Had he intervened, eased the tension between the two parties and taken the initiative to keep the Sena-BJP alliance intact, that would have been Modi’s real tribute to the late Balasaheb. But such a thing did not happen. Why did the thought of paying tribute to late Balasaheb did not occur (to Modi) when the saffron was on the brink of splitIJ,”