The biggest reason is expected to be the 76 seats in which BJP and Congress are in direct fights — with the saffron party confident of winning over 50 such seats
With six parties in the fray in a state election making it a contest like no other, the BJP is very confident of a victory for the Mahayuti in Maharashtra.
“BJP will be the single-largest party with seats in the three-digit mark and the Mahayuti will easily cross the 150-seat mark,” a source in the Maharashtra unit of the BJP told CNN-News18 about the party’s assessment of the alliance getting a comfortable majority.
The biggest reason is expected to be the 76 seats in which BJP and Congress are in direct fights — with BJP confident of winning over 50 such seats. Congress is contesting 102 seats, and 76 out of them are against the BJP — “so the higher the strike rate of the BJP is, the lower will that be of the Congress,” multiple BJP sources said.
BJP is contesting 152 seats and a dozen more BJP leaders are in the fray on tickets of BJP’s allies.
The second reason the BJP feels will bring Mahayuti a good show is the performance of Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena as “Shinde has run a good campaign based on development and the Ladki Behan scheme”, sources said.
Shinde will outdo the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena in a number of seats, as per the BJP’s assessment, with Thackeray’s party expected to finish at the fifth or sixth position among the six parties in the fray, say BJP sources. BJP feels both Congress and Thackeray will have poor strike rates, with Sharad Pawar’s party being the only saving grace in Maha Vikas Aghadi as the senior Pawar seems to have chosen his seats well and contested better.
BJP assesses that the seat distribution between Congress and Uddhav Thackeray’s party has been based on poor choices, which will reflect in the results as “Congress is fighting certain seats which it simply can’t win…the MVA camp is a confused lot on seats as well as on issues”, BJP sources say.
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Third, and a major factor, is expected to be a strong OBC consolidation in the Mahayuti’s favour, driven by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s slogan ‘Ek Hain Toh Safe Hain’, BJP sources say. The slogan coupled with the Mahayuti’s popular woman scheme could transcend caste barriers to bring rich dividend for the Mahayuti, a BJP source said. “The slogan is such a draw that Rahul Gandhi had to do a press conference on Monday around the same,” a BJP source pointed out. While MVA has said the slogan is divisive, it may have served its purpose of a Hindu consolidation in Maharashtra.
The fourth reason in the BJP’s assessment for its win could be the flip in Vidarbha region where the party had performed poorly in the Lok Sabha elections due to farmer distress and the campaign on the issue of Constitution. BJP’s recent moves on relief to cotton and soybean farmers, a better weather and yield season this time and the ‘Constitution’ issue running its course — is all expected to work in the Mahayuti’s favour, BJP sources say.
The fifth factor anticipated to work in Mahayuti’s favour is people’s anger against multi-term MPs of the alliance getting exhausted with the Lok Sabha results, and the RSS back in the ground with great vigour to bring out the BJP voters to polling booths. The campaign of the BJP has been more systematic and coordinated, sources claimed, compared to the Congress which has focussed on the ‘crony capitalism’ issue that has run its course.
