The Hindu : Front Page : A closely-fought election on the cards

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 13, 2004

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A closely-fought election on the cards

By Kalpana Sharma

MUMBAI, OCT. 12. The rallies, road shows and door-to-door campaigns have come to an end. As Maharashtra pauses after the campaigning for one of the most closely-fought elections for its 288-member Assembly comes to an end, no one can make a definite prediction about the outcome of the election to be held tomorrow.

While the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena combine asserted today that it was confident of getting a simple majority, the Congress-National Congress Party combine has been more circumspect merely saying that it thinks it has the edge.

Neither politician nor pollster really knows which way the vote will go after a large number of the 6.59-crore registered voters exercise their franchise in 64,390 polling booths across the State.

With 2,678 contestants, including 1,083 independents, the choice for the voter will be neither simple nor easy. There are 695 national parties with the Bahujan Samaj Party fielding 272, more than any other party. To add to the choice, there are 163 State parties in the fray as well as 161 State parties from other States and 576 regional parties.

The `rebel' factor

The special feature is the presence of "rebel" candidates in a large number of seats. The exact number is not known because many are known only at the constituency level. While some are contesting as Independents others have got ticket from the BSP, the Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal (United).

The Congress has expelled 47 such "rebels" and the NCP 13. Even the BJP and the Shiv Sena have not been spared the problem. The BJP has sent out five persons from the party for opposing official candidates and the Sena is said to have around 13 in the fray.

The impact of the rebels will be felt mainly in Vidarbha and Western Maharashtra — the two regions with the largest number of seats. It is expected that these two regions will essentially determine which of the two main alliances eventually rules the State.

Vote split

An additional factor in Vidarbha is the presence of the BSP, which has campaigned for a separate Vidarbha State. It has also capitalised on the disarray among the traditional Dalit parties, the four factions of the Republican Party of India (RPI). The split in the vote caused by the presence of the BSP could go either way but the saffron parties are counting on it benefiting them.

In Western Maharashtra, however, the Congress and the NCP are battling their own party members contesting as rebels. Not all of them have been expelled.

Asked by mediapersons how the party would respond to the rebels who win, the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, said today, "politics is the art of the possible, so anything can happen!"

The relatively short run-up to the elections, as well as the strict rules set by the Election Commission, forced all political parties to do a far more low-key and intensive campaigning than in the past. As a result, in a city such as Mumbai, until the last two days, few would have felt that an election was due. Hardly any banner or poster was visible.

The future of three former Chief Ministers — Vilasrao Deshmukh and Shivajirao Nilangekar-Patil of the Congress and Narayan Rane of the Shiv Sena — and the current incumbent, Mr. Sushilkumar Shinde, will be determined on October 16, when the election results will be known.

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