A lot of attention was focussed last entire fortnight, on how the final candidate lists of political alliances in Maharashtra would shape and who will dominate the lists. Several media reports appeared all over even in national media about the disputes between the Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) as well as the differences between BJP and Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena over how to share the seats in politically crucial areas like Mumbai city and suburbs, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Marathwada region and Western Maharashtra.
Finally the candidate lists came out just ahead of the deadline for filing of nominations and it became clear that on the Mahayuti side the BJP has been able to retain full control of the alliance in terms of numbers and on Maha Vikas Aghadi the Congress has been able to keep over 100 seats for itself and can perhaps be called the big-brother within the alliance.
But now what is becoming obvious is the larger than expected numbers of rebels speaking out and them likely to spoil the game in many constituencies in various parts of the state.
After a lot of pushes and pulls and talk about the Maha Vikas Aghadi ( MVA) likely to split the 288 seats of the state assembly into an equal three way 90-90-90 split, in fact the Congress was finally able to keep 102 seats for itself while Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena settled for 96 and Sharad Pawar's NCP has been given 86 seats in the total tally.
The Congress looked upbeat ever since achieving a very high strike rate in the recent Lok Sabha polls. The MVA alliance has kept 2 seats each for Samajwadi party and Peasants and Workers Party of PWP. But in many parts of the state especially Vidarbha, there has been large scale dissatisfaction seen openly among the party cadre.
To begin with, in many seats such as Daryapur and Ramtek there was a dispute between Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress. Now as the list is out, there is disappointment among the Congress party workers over some leaders not getting nominated or in some places seats being given to Shiv Sena (UBT) the Congress may suffer rebellion in many parts of Vidarbha.
How to counter this rebellion is a big question that the state party leadership faces. As the number of candidates is high in all the constituencies, the winning margin is going to be small and even a few thousand votes being taken away by a rebel candidate may make a lot of difference for any party.
The Congress is not alone when it comes to facing the challenge from rebel candidates. The BJP, till now known for discipline and using an iron hand when necessary, this time faces rebellion from aspiring candidates who have not got tickets because the ticket may have gone to alliance partners. The BJP has kept a lion's share in the Mahayuti alliance of 148 seats, Shiv Sena has been given 79 seats, Ajit Pawar's NCP has got 51 seats.
Right from Mumbai and Pune to many constituencies in Vidarbha and North Maharashtra this pattern is seen. The BJP was successful in quelling rebellion in its cadre always in the past but in this assembly polls the party now has to deal with even established former MPs and MLAs and well known names from Mumbai city like Gopal Shetty and Atul Shah as they get into rebellion mode.
The party was able to convince former MLC Atul Shah at the last moment before filing of nomination ended but there was a question mark over many other names in various parts of the state. BJP's alliance partner Eknath Shinde was requested by the BJP to not field a candidate from Mahim in Mumbai as MNC Chief Raj Thackeray's son Amit is contesting there and the BJP has made a soft alliance with Raj about that seat. But Shinde's candidate Sada Sarwankar filed his nomination despite requests from Mumbai BJP president Ashish Shelar. This is seen as a sort of rebellion within the Mahayuti alliance.
In the recent Lok Sabha polls it was seen all over Maharashtra that many candidates won or lost with a very small margin. In Mumbai Shiv Sena candidate Ravindra Waikar won by a margin of just 48 votes. In Beed, of Marathwada region, BJP leader Pankaja Munde lost by just six thousand votes. In a constituency where more than 10 lakh voters cast their votes, this margin is obviously very small.
The fear most parties and candidates have is that in a close fight, if rebels take away even 10 or 12 thousand votes of their loyal voters, it might make a difference between winning and losing for them. That's the reason all parties are very worried currently about the rebellion within their ranks.
The other possibility in this is that some of the rebels or independent candidates may actually even win and this may perhaps create situation similar to assembly polls of 1995 when a little over 40 MLAs in the state assembly were independents and many of them had to be accommodated in the state cabinet by the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance which came to power in Maharashtra for the first time.
Generally it is expected that rebels & independents if elected will play a vital role in the formation of the next government in Maharashtra.
