Bhupender Yadav (L), Ashwini Vaishnaw
Credit: PTI Photos
New Delhi: Senior BJP leaders Bhupender Yadav and Ashwini Vaishnaw continued their streak of pulling off unlikely poll wins for the party on Saturday as the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance is on course for a landslide victory in the Maharashtra Assembly election.
Last year, the Yadav-Vaishnaw duo were tasked with leading the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) campaign in Madhya Pradesh, where an upbeat Congress was hoping to make a comeback. The saffron party posted a convincing victory by bagging 163 seats in the 230-member Assembly.
The two Union ministers, who were also tasked with steering the campaign in Maharashtra, were camping in the state for the last few months to script the turnaround in the BJP's fortunes since its dismal performance in the Lok Sabha polls in April-May.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis congratulated Yadav as the election results trickled in and signalled a runaway victory for the BJP.
The BJP is on course to win 132 seats in the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly, the party's best-ever performance in the state where it largely played second fiddle to the Balasaheb Thackeray-led Shiv Sena till Prime Minister Narendra Modi emerged in the national political scene in 2014.
In this year's Lok Sabha polls, the BJP faced massive reverses as it could secure victory in only nine seats against the 23 it bagged in 2019.
Yadav and Vaishnaw were appointed as the prabhari (in-charge) and sah-prabhari (co-incharge) for the Maharashtra polls in June, days after the results of the Lok Sabha election were declared.
The two leaders swung into action, reaching out to the disgruntled segments within the party and various smaller caste groups as the BJP battled the challenge posed by the agitation for Maratha reservation spearheaded by activist Manoj Jarange Patil.
For Yadav, the Union environment minister, the Maharashtra assignment was the proverbial return to the old stomping ground. He was also the in-charge of the state for the 2019 Assembly polls, when the BJP won 105 seats, while the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena emerged victorious in 56 constituencies.
However, the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena walked out of its alliance with the BJP to form the government with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress, an unlikely coalition stitched by NCP veteran and former Maharashtra chief minister Sharad Pawar.
Maharashtra Assembly poll 2024 results| Check constituency results here
Jharkhand Assembly poll 2024 results| Check constituency results here
Bypoll 2024 results | Check Karnataka results here
Assembly Elections 2024 | The Maharashtra Assembly polls took place against the backdrop of a fractured political landscape in the western state where the Shiv Sena and NCP went up against the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar factions, even as the BJP and Congress tried to make their mark. Maha Yuti are currently comfortably poised to win. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the JMM faced a challenge after Hemant Soren's arrest and Champai, a longstanding party member, joining the BJP, but look set to retain power with its I.N.D.I.A. allies. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.
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